You’ve been collecting airline miles and bank points for quite some time now and you’re wanting to get started in searching for and booking an award flight at the best possible redemption rate – how do you get started? There is more than one way to begin the award search process and as long as you cover and check every flight option, there’s no wrong way to begin.
If you have been collecting miles and points for quite some time and have a sufficient balance of airline miles and transferable bank points across different programs, you’re probably in a good place to begin looking and booking. Searching for award flights can be a daunting task at first – between all of the different airlines and programs available, it may seem like a challenging task to find the best award flights.
Work Backwards – Where Are You Flying?
You’ll need to work backwards in order to find the best award flight available. That is, where are you flying first? The best way to check available airlines to your destination is by checking the airport’s Wikipedia page and see what airlines operate flights from what airports. You’ll then be able to get a feel for your options.
The other way is by running a cash/revenue flight search on Google Flights – this will give you routings available with a bunch of airlines between your origin and destination. You’ll then be able to see which airlines fly what routes and understand how major airline alliances can help you through partnerships.
Searching from Major Hubs
There are more flight options from major hubs rather than small regional airports. If you live in a smaller city, chances are you’ll need to fly to a bigger hub first before flying to your destination. When checking the Wikipedia page of the destination airport, take note what major hubs are available – then are there flights from your home airport to that major hub? Both Wikipedia and Google Flights will tell you, but Google Flights is more accurate as it contains real flights while some routes on Wikipedia might be outdated.
When searching for award availability, you always want to break up flights and search segment by segment. For example, if you live in Key West and are flying to London, you’ll want to search for flights from Key West to a major U.S. hub and then from there to London. Some of the possible hubs on this routing could be Miami, New York, Chicago, etc. – sometimes if there are no flights from your home city to your destination when searching, you’ll need to break up and piece together the itinerary.
Take Advantage of Airline Partnerships
The best way to book an award flight on one airline is often by redeeming miles from one of their partners and not booking with the operating airline directly. Every airline publishes different award charts for their frequent flyer redemptions – and the airline that you’re booking through determines the price, not the airline you’re flying.
For example, if you’re wanting to flying American Airlines and there is saver-level partner award availability, you can use any oneworld miles for this flight or redeem miles from one of AA’s partner airlines, like Etihad Airways, for example.
Taking advantage of airline partnerships is crucial because it will almost always get you a better value for your miles. For example, say you want to fly from Los Angeles to Honolulu on American Airlines – AA would most likely charge you around 22.5k miles one-way in Economy Class. If there is saver-level partner award space, you could book this same flight with British Airways and redeem just 13k points. AA doesn’t partner with any major bank programs but British does – so you could transfer your points from AMEX or Chase to British Airways and redeem BA points on an American Airlines flight, for example.
Where Do Your Bank Points Transfer?
Once you’ve determined the route and airline you’re wanting to fly and also the airline and their partners – where can you transfer your points in order to redeem for your desired flight? You’ll need to check what airline frequent flyer programs you can transfer your bank points to.
Most bank programs transfer to airlines at a 1:1 ratio with an instant transfer – which mean you can use your points instantly. There are, however, some exceptions where the ratios are different or transfers aren’t instant.
You’ll find the airline transfer partners along with transfer ratios directly on your bank points program’s award page. You’re then able to search online what airlines each of those frequent flyer programs partner with. Remember that if an airline is in an alliance, you can use miles from any airline in that alliance to fly any other airline.
Put It All Together: Using Bank Points for an Award Flight
Let’s say you live in San Diego and want to fly to Madrid and have both AMEX and Chase points. You check Wikipedia and Google Flights and notice there aren’t any nonstop flights between the two cities, but you can connect in a bunch of different hubs.
By looking at the flight schedules, you’ll notice that both San Diego and Madrid are very well served by all major airlines and alliances – so finding award space shouldn’t be a problem.
Let’s say you want to fly Lufthansa from San Diego to Madrid via Munich – AMEX and Chase do not partner with Lufthansa, so now what? Lufthansa is a Star Alliance member which means that you can use any Star Alliance miles for this flight if there is award availability.
You’ll notice that you can transfer your AMEX points to Air Canada or Chase points to United, both of which are Star Alliance airlines from which you can redeem miles on Lufthansa. AMEX and Chase also partner with other Star Alliance airlines, so before doing any transfers you’ll want to check all options and see which one offers you the best redemption. You would simply run a search on every partner airline’s website and look for the specific flight you want and then in the end, transfer and book with the airline offering you the best price in miles and tax.
All in All
There are many ways to book one specific award flight – make sure to check all partner redemption options before booking in order to find the best one. At the beginning, it can be a daunting task to run through all of the available flight options and find good award availability. Remember to work backwards and do take your time to run through each partner airline.
After you’ve found the best redemption option, review the transfer details from your bank points program and make sure the transfer is instant and the ratio is favorable – some airlines allow you to hold award flights for a short period before ticketing, this could be a great option to ensure the seats aren’t booked up by others. Lastly, take note of the change and cancel policies and remember that once you transfer bank points to an airline, they can’t be transferred back.