When traveling with a large party, you generally want to start
searching for award seats right when the schedule opens for booking.
When
searching for award seats, the advertised fare price is usually the non-discounted price.
These tools are extremely helpful and make those beginning stages of
searching for award seats much more convenient.
Most airlines just release 1 to 2 premium cabin seats per route so even if you're incredibly aggressive with
searching for award seats, you may never have a chance.
We've been covering the topic all week, first talking about the need for a pool of domestic miles, and then tricks for
searching for award seats with those miles.
Finally, those whose schedules preclude
searching for award seats months in advance will also find their miles to be less valuable.
Finally, those whose schedules preclude
searching for award seats months in advance will also find their miles to be less valuable.
To get the most out of airline miles, you really need to pay attention to things like what airline partners you can use with which miles, where to
search for award seats, and how many miles is a «good» price to pay.
But the big bonus with this site is that it helps travelers
search for award seats, which is often what we're collecting those miles for in the first place!
EXPERT FLYER LOSES STAR ALLIANCE AWARD DATA…ExpertFlyer.com, a popular tool used to research flight availability and
search for award seat space, has lost the ability to access award space data to Star Alliance carriers.
It never hurts to log into airline websites when
you search for award seats.
It seems that if you hold a Chase United MileagePlus Explorer card and log in to United.com and
search for award seats, you will see more seats available than someone without the card.
I searched for award seats and noted the days and flight numbers that had available seats.
Not exact matches
The next time you
search for business class
award space to Seoul, South Korea on Korean Air's site, you'll notice they even let you know how many
seats are available to be booked with Korean SkyPass miles.
However,
award seats might not be available very far in advance; you can
search for space on Delta.com
Finding
seats can be extremely difficult of course, but we do the legwork
for you on a
search for award availability.
United's
award search tool is impeccable in
searching award seats for itself and almost all Star Alliance partners.
I knew that I wanted us to fly back to the UK in Singapore Airlines Suites Class so that was the first flight I
searched for... and there was one date with 2
award seats showing.
Though Delta isn't known
for offering a generous amount of
award space to its partners, I was able to find four first - class
award seats available in August from Denver to Maui via Los Angeles and Seattle using the online
award search engine
for Alaska Airlines, which you don't even need an account to use.
One thing to keep in mind is that ANA won't always show you the partners available
for booking, so you sometimes you'll need to
search United and Aeroplan
for flights to Bangkok and then call up ANA to locate the partner
award seats.
As I was playing around with the British Airways
Search tool, I noticed that there are as many as 6 business class
award seats available
for travelling to India next week.
You'll still have access to the same airlines (Delta and Alaska) to
search for and book
award seats.
Learning how to
search and book
awards seats on partner airlines is crucial to maximizing the value of your points and increasing your options
for getting to where you want -LSB-...]
I
searched long and hard
for award seats on Delta and had no luck but this could also just be a matter of bad timing.
Learning how to
search and book
awards seats on partner airlines is crucial to maximizing the value of your points and increasing your options
for getting to where you want to go.
On the airlines» websites, I
searched for economy - class
award seats on nonstop between Salt Lake City and Chicago
for every day in June and July.
As most readers know, it's already become very difficult to book Cathay Pacific first class in advance using AAdvantage miles, especially if you're
searching for two
award seats.
To evaluate Delta's promise to make more
seats available at the lowest mileage levels, I picked a few routes and performed
award searches both before and after the new year
for flights in May and June of 2015.
That being said, one of the nice things about signing up
for AerClub is that you can
search for award inventory online, and I've found that British Airways phone agents typically have access to the same number of
award seats as you'll see online at Avios.com.
From finding the best routes, to
searching for award space; from calling the airlines on your behalf to booking the
award seats themselves; we take care of it all.
In theory, you can use the British Airways website to
search for available
award seats on American, Alaska, or Virgin America.
You can use this tool to
search for award availability and discover those rare
award airline
seats easily.
She'd also pick up a few tricks
for searching ba.com like always specify one passenger no matter how many are flying because it is the rare website that tells you how many
award seats are available in each cabin if you just
search for one person.
As it's not possible to book partner flights or
search for seats online, you'll need to look
for available
award seats on the partner airlines website.
Also, every airline releases
award seats at different times, so it is a little tough to predict when the best time is to
search for availability.
Dear Tracey, United frequent flier miles can be a valuable commodity, because it is easy to
search for award availability on United's website and because United tends to have more
award seats available than its competitors.
Or to get other ideas
for route options, or to just
search for OneWorld
award seats, try using expertflyer or Qantas»
search engine.
When there are six or fewer
seats available
for awards, that fact is noted in the
search results, and yet that fact is not noted in the screenshot above meaning there are 7 +
award seats in Business Class on each flight that you can book with American Airlines miles.