Tag Archives for award availability.
Delta’s returning Los Angeles–Hong Kong route is showing unusually generous award space, with more than nine Delta One seats available on nearly every flight this summer from just 93,500 miles for Amex cardholders. It’s one of the best opportunities in years to redeem SkyMiles for long-haul business class to Asia.
Swiss has released unusually wide-open business class award space for summer 2026 — in many cases up to nine seats on the same flight. Routes from Boston, New York, Newark, Chicago, Washington Dulles and Montreal are all included, and the space is bookable through United MileagePlus, Air Canada Aeroplan and Avianca LifeMiles using transferable points.
Cathay Pacific just threw open the doors to its ultra-rare first class cabin—two JFK-Hong Kong awards you can still grab before they vanish.
Hyatt now offers live award availability – not just the price a hotel would cost if it’s available – in calendar format.
The key to getting the most out of miles and points is having some flexibility. If you can only take a certain flight on a specific day, you’ll take or leave what’s available. But if you can shift your plans and take advantage of the awards that are available, when they come up, you can get orders of magnitude greater value – business and first class for the same price as coach, international long haul for the same price as domestic.
Awards for new American Airlines business class suites are wide open between Chicago and London Heathrow this summer as well as between Philadelphia and London. The new American Airlines 787-9s debuts June 5. That’s when the first plane flies Chicago – Los Angeles and back and then on to London. Come July all three of American’s Chicago – London flights transition to this new aircraft (“789P”). It features business class suites with doors, including an enhanced bulkhead row, as well as new premium economy seats. The plane is also equipped with ViaSat wifi which is far more functional than the Panasonic installs that have been featured on all of American’s wifis prior to the ‘block 2’ 787-8s which were delivered after the pandemic. American has these flights available for a variety of points prices, for…
Looking at the cost of domestic roundtrip bookings, the report finds that award price inflation (36% since 2019) is much worse than inflation in the broader economy (24%). American AAdvantage redemptions have actually got 21% cheaper in this category over the last six years.
I really like point.me award search and I use it myself when trying to find award flights. Quickly search across most frequent flyer programs to see what flights are available to book using points, compare the cost of those awards, and get help with how to make the bookings at the lowest cost possible. This is a premium service, but did you know that you can access it for free? And if you haven’t used it lately, it’s gotten far better in the last few months.
Lufthansa is putting the superjumbo Airbus A380 onto the Denver – Munich route April 30 through September 30th. The plane will also operate from Munich to New York, Boston, Washington, Los Angeles and Delhi.
That’s a lot of airplane with a lot of seats to fill, and award space especially on the Denver route is wide open using miles from partner frequent flyer programs.
While Etihad is a partner of both American AAdvantage and Air Canada Aeroplan, this space won’t be bookable using those points, and Etihad’s own program is both costly and comes with draconian cancellation penalties. Fortunately, you can book the space using Air France KLM’s Flying Blue as reasonable rates.
Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel -- a topic he has covered since 2002.
Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »
