Not exact matches
There are several enterprising
award travel enthusiasts that use special tools to
find award availability and have extensive experience doing
so.
If American SAAver
awards weren't
so hard to
find then this would be a much more worthwhile redemption but I would be reluctant to trust that SAAver
availability would open up.
American Airlines
awards are valid for up to a year from the date of purchase
so, if you can't
find award availability on the dates you're prepared to travel, this is what you can do:
Finding Saver
Award availability with Delta is always an adventure, especially during the summer,
so don't get upset if you cant
find anything for the dates you want.
I
find ANA's website a bit clunky
so my go - to sites are Aeroplan or United which are both easy to use and quite reliable when it comes to showing true
award availability.
Airlines release a limited number of
award seats per flight,
so if you have a large family and all want to travel together, it may not be possible to
find enough
award availability.
Finding saver
awards on American Airlines (the
awards you'll need to
find to book this kind of trip) is hard
so, unless you can see
availability online right now, I wouldn't buy miles with the expectation of booking this
award easily.
At the top - end hotels there's definitely value to be had out of this promotion (especially during busier times) but, when prices are very high,
award nights can be harder to
find so make sure there's
availability before you commit to a points purchase.
In my experience,
finding award availability with Flying Blue has been pretty easy
so I think it's a good choice for families to consider.
But with that said, it has become standard procedure for me to once again check SkyMiles
availability when looking for an
award ticket (and to not look
so shocked when I
find some).
But I honestly do like to be helpful to people who don't know how to play the points and miles game,
so I explained that while it was unlikely we could
find any decent
award availability to a premium destination during such a busy holiday period at this late date, I would check it out for her.
The Asiana website does not bring in partners flights on
award searches,
so you need to
find availability on another Star Alliance partner's website such as United, and then call to book.
As part of my «Battle of the Budget Hotels» research, I tried to book an
award night with Choice, but could either not
find availability or the point prices were
so high that it was not worth redeeming points.
Alaska uses the old, pre-devaluation AA
award chart,
so provided you can
find AA
availability, you can save tens of thousands of miles vs. using AAdvantage miles.
It's worth noting that it's tougher than ever before to
find first class Star Alliance
award space on Lufthansa and Swiss (see How to Deal with No More Lufthansa Advance First Class
Availability),
so nowadays this is most practical when planning close to departure, as Lufthansa tends to open up
award space no more than three weeks out.
I've always
found the most exotic destinations to have the best
award availability,
so there's plenty of potential here to travel off the beaten path.
TAM's
award availability doesn't appear on AA.com,
so you'll have to search on your own — or speak with an AA agent — to
find award availability to these smaller cities.
With great
availability, little competition, and
so many flights you can usually
find Korean Air
award space.
At the time there was very little
availability on AA metal, and I felt lucky to
find the premium saver
award space on the 777 - 200 departing JFK at 7:55 p.m. Generally, though, I prefer taking the latest possible trans - Atlantic flight
so that I can get more sleep.