Award
flight availability between New York and Juan SantamarĂa International Airport is usually very good.
Not exact matches
While several airlines, including United, Japan Airlines, and All Nippon Airways, offer direct
flights between New York and Tokyo, Korean Air offers the most frequent flyer award
availability — useful for us, since we only had a little bit of schedule flexibility — and is a transfer partner of Chase, whose points we had already started to earn.
The
availability of points
flights can vary from airline to airline, while the rules and fees associated with fuel surcharges also differ
between carriers and destinations.
There are tons of
flights available
between Paris and Frankfurt, an intra-Europe route with more plentiful
availability.
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.
Provided you're flexible enough about the
availabilities and have the desired time to carry out some research, you can put your Singapore Airlines» KrisFlyer miles to excellent use by utilizing them on
flight bookings
between the South Pacific islands.
Though the ticket
availability and prices vary depending on the route, seats are generally available for
flights between April and July, and again from November through December — including peak summer season and Thanksgiving.
A quick search for
availability about 7 + months out showed many open business class and first class seats
between Hong Kong and Sydney and so you'd just need to find Cathay Pacific
flights from departure points in the US (SFO or LAX).
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:
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.
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:
Most programs offer better rates for
flights between the U.S. and Israel, though it might make sense to purchase an award ticket if there's no
availability on other airlines.
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.
Searching for
availability about 4 months out and more, I found several
flights with 2 to 4 open spots in business
between HKG and BKK.
By following the steps above I found
availability for Business Class
flights between London and Abu Dhabi on dates just before Christmas (a great time to get a bit of sun before the European winter really sets in).
A quick search for
availability about 7 months out showed many open business class seats (sometimes up to 5 seats open)
between Hong Kong and Auckland and so you'd just need to find Cathay Pacific
flights from departure points in the US (SFO or LAX).
Searching for
availability about 4 months out and more, I found several
flights with 2 to 4 open spots in business
between HKG and HND / NRT.
Try looking for one - way
flights between hubs where
flights are plentiful to find the best value and
availability.
Asiana Club offers good rates and excellent
availability on
flights between the U.S. and Asia.
As you can see, there is a lot of
availability for LAN
flights between Lima and Easter Island routed via Santiago (yes, in business, but still).
Between those two airlines, I have a very wide range of
availability for
flights both domestically and internationally so those partners are very valuable to me.
Since you'll never find award
availability on that route, the best deal is for
flights between Australia and New Zealand.
If there are no
flights between your selected airports, then you receive this error message suggesting that you try the Award Seat
Availability search page:
Likewise, there's a difference
between airlines that allow you to pay for your
flights with miles (Delta), airlines that offer last - seat
availability at much higher rates (Alaska and American), and airlines that offer last - seat
availability only to certain customers (United).
Delta is actually the best for booking Australia business class awards, one of the toughest frequent flyer awards out there, because of their partnership with Virgin Australia (which has the best
availability non-stop
between the U.S. and Australia, especially on their Los Angeles — Brisbane
flight).