That makes booking with LifeMiles the more attractive option if you can't
find award availability with non-stop service.
To
find award availability with JAL you can search on their own website or use British Airways» search function.
In my experience,
finding award availability with Flying Blue has been pretty easy so I think it's a good choice for families to consider.
Not exact matches
Since United is the only US - based carrier in Star Alliance, you will have the best chance to
find award seat
availability for your area
with this airline.
Keeping track of what credit card is best to use at which location,
finding award availability across a variety of carriers and
finding the best deals when paying based on the cash rate are all made easier
with some of the great tools out -LSB-...]
Sure, I have to deal
with limited
award availability, but I travel often enough that over the course of a year I can
find a way to use my points in a way that I value at more than 1.25 cents.
Searching
with flexible dates allows you to
find the best
availability of Saver
Awards, which are typically available for half of the miles a Standard
Award requires.
You won't have to worry about
finding award seat
availability or dealing
with blackout dates.
In the entire month of October, I
found one day
with availability on the LAX — JFK non-stop flight at the saver
award level.
Finding Saver
Award availability with Delta is always an adventure, especially during the summer, so don't get upset if you cant
find anything for the dates you want.
And remember, using Pay
with Points means you don't have to
find Saver or other low - level
award availability.
In order to get your ticket
with Alaska, we recommend you
find your
award on the AA website first to confirm
availability.
When I searched for
availability from the US to Auckland
with United on Aeroplan's website, I
found a lot of United
award availability for flights 5 + months out and decent
availability for flights only a couple of months out but it wasn't the kind of
availability I liked.
Overall, if Promo
Awards fit
with your travel plans and you can
find the
award availability, my advice would be to book it.
Having
found dates
with award availability the next step was to phone American Airlines to get them to grab the seats.
With an
award ticket you're often very restricted in the dates you can fly (if you can
find availability in the first place) and you don't earn miles or anything towards elite status.
If you can
find Saver
Award availability on United.com
with 2 or fewer connections then you can book the same flight over the phone.
You can book this flight using Miles & More miles as long as you
find Saver
Award availability on United
with no more than 3 flight segments.
If you ever manage to
find low - level
award availability with Delta, you could make a killing redeeming cheaply - earned Virgin Atlantic miles for that
award, though I certainly wouldn't hold my breath.
Once you
find North American
award availability with American Airlines or British Airways, check their prices against Iberia's;
My girlfriend Ashlee's lack of work vacation days put us in a pinch to
find award availability... [Continue reading] about How I Saved Big Dollars Booking Delta Flights
With Korean Air
Finding saver
awards on American Airlines (the
awards you'll need to
find to book this kind of trip) is hard so, unless you can see
availability online right now, I wouldn't buy miles
with the expectation of booking this
award easily.
I
found a ton of
availability to Tokyo
with Korean Air and many of the
award seats also showed up on Delta's website leading me to believe that
award availability to get to Japan
with Korean Air is generally pretty solid, though you'll
find it easiest to book several months out.
But
with that said, it has become standard procedure for me to once again check SkyMiles
availability when looking for an
award ticket (and to not look so shocked when I
find some).
If you never travel, don't spend around $ 800 a month or more in bonus categories, or don't want to deal
with the hassle of
finding award availability, a cash back card may be right for you.
As part of my «Battle of the Budget Hotels» research, I tried to book an
award night
with Choice, but could either not
find availability or the point prices were so high that it was not worth redeeming points.
Booking mixed - cabin
awards with Etihad — If you are booking a mixed - cabin
award on Etihad, you will run into the situation where phone agents can not see the same
award availability that you may have
found online.
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.
Similarly, if you are booking an
award with Alaska Airlines, you might prefer to use their own
award search rather than Singapore's to
find availability.
But when you dig in a but, you may realize that these are mostly Category 7 resorts
with such high standard redemption rates it's hard to get a great deal — except maybe if you can
find award availability at very peak times.
I've
found more
award availability with Turkish Airlines than Swiss, but still pretty limited overall.
Since Alaska Airlines is not aligned
with any alliance, they have a unique range of partners that cover most of the globe, and allow you to easily
find award availability.
After we analyze the best approach to take for booking your
award, we
find the
award availability, assist you
with transferring points as necessary, and even help you make the actual
award booking.
Whether you're working toward a revenue requirement for elite airline status or you can't
find award availability for your travel dates, sometimes you have to pay for a ticket
with cash rather than miles or points.
The thing that I
find most useful
with the United
award booking engine is the calendar at the top which clearly shows when there is
availability and when there isn't.
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 out.
If many
awards cost more miles, do you think that people
with lots of miles (like you) will have better chances of
finding space since some people won't be able to afford the new rates
with the same
availability?
TAM's
award availability doesn't appear on AA.com, so you'll have to search on your own — or speak
with an AA agent — to
find award availability to these smaller cities.
With great
availability, little competition, and so many flights you can usually
find Korean Air
award space.
In the meantime, it makes it a no - brainer to redeem for Cathay Pacific First Class instead of business class if using US Airways Dividend miles, although the challenge
with that is that it's become harder to
find Cathay Pacific
award availability for two people traveling together.
I agree
with your analysis in general, but I
find that
availability for
award seats tend to lean more to flights going to HKG rather than leaving out of HKG.
With two daily flights to Dubai and one to Delhi I've
found award availability to be very good.
This makes the program competitive
with both Delta and United low - level
awards, assuming you can
find availability.