If you're using United to search but plan on booking with different miles, it may be beneficial to
search for your award segment - by - segment so you can see more options that might be available.
Not exact matches
We recommend
searching for award flight availability
segment by
segment.
All of these airlines can be
searched on delta.com
for award availability, however, results
for China Eastern and China Southern frequently display
award availability that isn't there (it will have an error if you try to purchase) and connecting itineraries often incorrectly price each
segment additively rather than as a single one - way.
When you go back to
searching for award flights, begin by
searching for award space on each
segment individually and then piece the flights together.
After confirming Saver class availability
for each flight
segment by
searching them as one - way flights, I now stitched them all together in United's multi-destination
award search tool, making certain to choose the specific flight numbers I'd confirmed availability on during my one - way
searches.
In turn, it will also help determine which routes and
segments to
search on both British Airways and Qantas's websites
for awards.
Like United, it also does a great job of
searching for almost all Star Alliance members, but it does a slightly better job of
searching for awards with connections so you shouldn't need to
search segment - by -
segment unless your intended itinerary has more than three
segments.
I find Aeroplan and ANA to have some of the best
search function
for Star Alliance redemptions, or Lifemiles, and British Airways Avios page is usually top notch
for OneWorld
awards, especially when
searching trips by individual
segments.
This can problematic if you are
searching for business or first class
awards, so unless you are
searching for flights in economy, you should always
search British Airways one
segment at a time.
If your initial
search for an
award flight does not provide you with any options that you like, you may have better luck
searching one
segment at a time.
However, the
search engine is still a bit wonky, and has trouble pulling up
awards for multiple
segments.
We also check the radio button
for Award Travel and indicate we are just looking
for a one - way flight (since we'll
search one
segment at a time).
Search segment - by -
segment for the parts of the
award, and if you can't get delta.com to bring up your masterpiece, call Delta at 800-323-2323 to book the
award.
To
search ba.com
for award space when connecting itineraries are possible, you must master the very simple concept of
segment - by -
segment searching.