Now is a good time to explain that airlines do not have an unlimited
amount of award space on any given flight.
The color - coding is a bit annoying because every
level of award space is a shade of blue, but the lightest ones are off peak awards.
However,
visibility of award space can be unreliable, and if you get no results you should confirm with another website before giving up.
Before moving points you should consider three factors: the number of miles charged for an award, the fees and surcharges added to the cost, and the
availability of award space.
As you can see, there is
plenty of award space and there's also plenty of time to collect the miles and book flights.
United releases a
ton of award space in business class between Washington and London, seemingly much more so than any other route.
I noted the date, cabin, and flight
number of the award space I found from Abu Dhabi to Washington DC and moved on to Cairo to Abu Dhabi in Business Class.
While it's a deal that has been around for years and isn't really «secret,» Cathay Pacific not only has one of the best first class products, but also releases plenty
of award space for travel between the US and Asia.
And although Delta, United, and American all offer service to Buenos Aires from their largest hubs, they don't make a lot
of award space available at the lowest mileage levels.
Nor are you going to find much in the
way of award space for Delta or United's transcon business class service, though at least if you do, those airlines will only charge you 25,000 miles one way.
Unfortunately, British Airways releases the
majority of award space to Europe, and American is still in the process of installing lie - flat seats in its business class cabins.
Both of these programs (American and British Airways) get access to the same
set of award space on planes.
Hat Tip to an email from Michael K. that made me investigate the
drought of award space more systematically than I had been.
Virgin Australia went from a
glut of award space in Business Class from the United States to Australia that you could book with Delta miles to basically none.
There is plenty
of award space departing from Sacramento (SMF) and San Francisco (SFO) on Alaska, American, and United Airlines.
-LSB-...] miles depending on the route because many of their partners, notable United, Lufthansa, and Cathay Pacific open up tons
of award space right before departure if seats are -LSB-...]
Abu Dhabi to London (below) shows similar
patterns of award space inclduing the wide open availability in mid-November on tons of flights.
There's no getting away from it, American Airlines is incredibly stingy with its premium cabin award inventory and the
lack of award space on American Airlines has been a regular grip with frequent flyers for years.
Air France / KLM Flying Blue did well and I give them credit for making generous
amounts of award space available to their own members and for clever promotions that include half - off awards between select cities.
OneMileAtATime has already found a
lot of award space on LOTs new route so, if you have Star Alliance miles (Aeroplan, United, Avianca etc...) then this may be a good time to book an award if you're looking to fly to Europe.
Kenya Airways award space can be searched through Air France's Flying Blue website, where you'll find there's a
ton of award space on these airlines to Nairobi.
I actually just looked for tickets to Barcelona in February for Valentine's Day and found
plenty of award space.
While Korean Air might not provide a first class experience quite like you'd get with the Etihad First Apartments, they provide a great product and often release plenty
of award space.
Turkish Airlines is a member of Star Alliance and is known for providing a decent amount
of award space to travelers interested in redeeming miles.
Nevermind my question as I finally got a very limited amount
of award space to show out of CHC.
This amount
of award space isn't limited to that route, though I thought the Los Angeles route was most noteworthy, since it's usually one of the toughest routes in the system on which to snag an award or upgrade.