Finding saver awards is tough, especially if you're traveling around the time everyone else is (summer, spring and winter breaks).
For example, you can only book Saver Awards with Singapore Airlines and so you would only be concerned with
finding Saver Awards.
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.
Plus we need to get two of us there so
finding saver awards is likely impossible.
Finding saver awards on Delta is always a challenge.
This is a route where I didn't have much issues
finding saver award availability while booking Singapore Suites about a year ago.
If you're lucky enough to
find a saver award on United it will cost you 150,000 miles + taxes and, in this sale, the miles would cost $ 3,375.
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.
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.
You can get to HI for 17,500 each way, provided you can
find saver award space.
That means I'd need to spend $ 25K on my card to get a free ticket, and it's often hard to
find Saver Award seats.
If
you find a saver award using another airline's site (or using ExpertFlyer) and BritishAirways.com doesn't pull it up, give them a call and see if the phone agent can find the space for you.
I highly recommend doing your own research in advance and
finding saver award availability at United.com and wiring down the flight numbers and calling in.
If you're interested in visiting during April, you just need to
find saver award flight availability from your city to Chicago (ORD) during one of these dates.
Off peak awards require
finding Saver award space on all legs from your home airport to your destination, and flying all US Airways planes.
Not exact matches
In order to get the most value from your miles, you need to do everything possible to
find these rare
saver awards, and consider saving your miles if only the so - called standard
awards are available.
The reason we say «if you could» is because
finding a Delta
Saver non-stop
award to Israel in any class of service is an adventure, and you shouldn't count on it.
While Delta SkyMiles can be tough to use for booking
award flights to Australia because of incredibly high redemption rates, your miles can be useful if you
find saver level
award space.
First, by carrying a Chase United card (even the fee - free version) you have access to more
saver level domestic Economy
award availability (HT: bluecat who correctly points out the availability extends to international flights on United metal) I haven't
found the difference that noticeable for the most part, but while doing some research for an upcoming Brandon Asks post I noticed it was quite useful for positioning flights.
However, if you can
find award space on Virgin Atlantic and a separate
saver level
award for a connecting flight, there is a way to make this work.
Saver level economy
award tickets for domestic flights can offer good value for your miles, but they may be difficult to
find.
If you're able to
find saver level
award space on the dates you need, the process of searching and booking is pretty straightforward and can be completed entirely online.
The reason we say «if you could» is because
finding a Delta
Saver non-stop
award to Israel in any class of service is an adventure, and you shouldn't count on it.
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.
If you happen to
find saver level
award space on American Airlines, Avios are also great for short flights within the U.S.
While
finding saver level business class
award space on Hawaiian Airlines can be very tough, there are lots of routes with lie - flat seats if you can
find the space.
But I don't have good experience
finding SuperSaver
award space and couldn't determine if this discount also applies to more common
Saver awards.
but, if you can
find a Business Class United
Saver award for dates that work for you, it would set you back just 120,000 miles + taxes.
Delta flies 757s and 767s between JFK and Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle, but
finding its business class
award at a
Saver rate is virtually impossible.
I do think Hawaiian has good service if you've never tried them before, but
awards from North America to Hawaii are 20,000 miles one - way at the SuperSaver level, and you're more likely to
find them at the 30,000
Saver level.
In the entire month of October, I
found one day with availability on the LAX — JFK non-stop flight at the
saver award level.
American Airlines is very bad at releasing
Saver Award seats so it's dangerous to assume that you'll be able to
find an economical use for the miles with any great ease.
When I was trying to put together a South America trip about 1.5 years ago I
found a ton of
Saver awards to Brazil and Chile in first and biz.
Economy
saver awards are usually plentiful but business class seats can be very hard to
find.
If you can
find saver space on Delta, you can get a round trip business class
award within US for 45,000 miles.
And remember, using Pay with Points means you don't have to
find Saver or other low - level
award availability.
However, since the prices are variable you may be able to
find cheaper
awards that aren't significantly more expensive than
Saver level
awards.
I've checked a few days in September and
found a lot of
Saver award seats.
There's absolutely no guarantee that
saver awards space will become easier to
find and there's no guarantee that American won't devalue its
award charts before you get a chance to use the miles.
In peak season things can be different — if you can
find award availability points can be a money
saver.
Finding a nonstop
Saver award flight might be challenging, depending where you're departing from in the U.S..
You can forget about using the miles you buy for premium cabin
saver awards on American Airlines — they're so hard to
find they may as well not exist nowadays.
These can be as low as 20,000 miles each way for a Super
Saver award, but you will
find much better availability at the
Saver level for 30,000 miles.
Finding American Airlines Business Class
saver awards across the Atlantic can be next to impossible but, early last year, I was lucky enough to
find two Business Class
saver awards between Madrid and LA for travel on Iberia.
Saver award availability for this route at 37,500 looks tough to come by but you can probably
find open Standard
awards for 70,000 miles one - way.
Well, it's very difficult to
find business class
saver awards via partners like United on this route.
However,
finding a Delta
saver non-stop
award to Israel in any class of service is an adventure, and you can only book a partner's flight if it has a
saver award available.
Assuming you can
find United - metal
saver availability in coach for the days you want, you can save 20 % off a roundtrip
award from the US or Alaska to Porto, Portugal, Reykjavik, Iceland, Singapore, or Sydney, Australia.
After not
finding much of anything in the
Saver Award category (I have plenty of miles, but why book Standard
Award when you can book
Saver Award?)