You won't have to worry about
finding award seat availability or dealing with blackout dates.
If you can't
find an award flight on the dates you want at the lowest redemptions rates, you'll just have to pay more or use your miles for something else.
Even if you ca
n't find any award space for a nonstop flight, you can still use connecting flights.
Start your search early to give yourself the best chance
of finding award space and check regularly if you don't see space initially.
For searches that were about 6 + months out, I didn't have much
trouble finding award seats in business class.
There are no blackout dates for award travel for cardholders,
so finding award availability is easy.
If you have a family of three or more people, it can be REALLY hard to
find award inventory to book a big trip, especially when it comes to premium cabins.
This is inconvenient if you want to transfer points from another program only
after finding award space.
This is also a good strategy if you can
only find award space in one direction right now and are hoping more award space will appear later.
I try to focus mostly on paid travel, rather than award flights and nights,
because finding award availability is harder than just finding a ticket and pulling out my card.
Finding award sweet spots in a revenue - based program is not easy, since it typically boils down to finding the lowest fare.
And check rewards travel blogs for insider info on your destination so you don't get surprised down the road by
difficulty finding award seats.
That means you can
typically find award seats on a certain flight, transfer the points and book the ticket without worrying that somebody else will beat you to it.
Sometimes you can
even find award seats with 2 different alliances that arrive at your destination within minutes of each other.
You can
generally find award space online using a different website before you call the agent to complete the booking.
You'll
simply find your award flight and then when it's time to purchase it, you'll select the option to pay with points plus cash.
Being flexible on your travel dates even just 1 day in either direction can greatly increase your chances of
finding an award itinerary that will work for you.
[URL here] Founded this award - winning tech blog.
In fact, your experience with
finding award tickets will be much more pleasant than looking for business class routes.
You'll
also find award - winning food writing plus reader reviews and ratings.
With transferable points, you can use whichever program offers the best rates, or use the travel portal if you ca
n't find an award ticket or the price you want.
There is some risk involved because you will be paying money upfront for potential flights in the future and it can be hard to
find award seats on the specific flights you want.
And, most importantly, easily book domestic travel getting 1.5 cents per point without having to worry
about finding award availability.
Note: If the agent can't
find award availability on the return flight, this is when you'd feed her the flight numbers for the alternate itineraries you researched earlier.
The huge diversity of transfer partners means that you can
find award space in the program you want to use and then transfer the points to book that award.
Just as UK travelers will often have more
luck finding award flights out of European cities other than London, US travelers will often find better award availability to cities like Paris and Brussels.
Those based on the West Coast or
who find award space from their home city usually don't find this to be a problem, but Alaska's East Coast network is still growing and can create challenges.