As
you search for award availability with partners, you can reference the Oneworld and other partners» AA award charts to determine the number of AA miles you will need to book.
There's
no searching for award availability with Pay with Points — if a ticket is available, it's yours.
Not exact matches
American Airlines is another option
for searching for award ticket
availability to redeem
with Avios.
Miles are redeemed as statement credits toward travel purchases made
with your card, so you can book the airfare or hotel room you want without having to
search for award availability (hence, no blackout dates).
One interesting feature of Aeroplan's website is that you can
search for award availability to multiple destinations at once, similar to how you can enter multiple destinations when looking
for paid tickets
with ITA Matrix.
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.
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.
The only problem is that I never double checked the
availability with the British Airways Avios
search engine and American is known to show phantom
award space
for Finnair.
The best way to
search for Qatar
award availability (even if redeeming
with American miles) is via British Airways» website.
Recent example, I was
searching LAN
availability on BA and got no
availability for months because no flights were bookable
with avios, but
award space was wide open on LAN
searching directly on their website.
Award availability can be searched on a calendar view in five week increments, and when you select a day with a particular mileage level, you actually see award flights that can be booked for that p
Award availability can be
searched on a calendar view in five week increments, and when you select a day
with a particular mileage level, you actually see
award flights that can be booked for that p
award flights that can be booked
for that price.
And sure enough, this morning while
searching Delta.com, I came up
with lots of
award availability on Virgin Atlantic flights in economy from JFK to London Heathrow
for the same amount of 60,000 miles and $ 185 in taxes and fees.
The common mistake that many people make is that if they have a frequent flyer program
with a particular airline, they will simply go to the airline website and
search for an
award availability.
* You can also use Delta's website to
search for availability but keep in mind that in order to book a Delta flight
with either of the Ultimate Rewards Skyteam partners, there must be
award space available at the saver level on Delta.