Tag Archives for award availability.
Prompted by my writing about wide open availability for two first class Suites awards on the Singapore Airlines New York JFK – Frankfurt flight, a reader asks about other ‘fifth freedom routes’ between the U.S. and Europe.
They wanted to fly between the U.S. and Europe on an Asian or Middle Eastern carrier and wanted to know what their options looked like using miles for the best seats possible.
This summer British Airways doubled its award availability commitment. Each airline opens award space on flights on its own schedule, if they open awards at all. British Airways is unique in promising to make awards available on every flight when the schedule loads.
But they don’t promise first class awards. They used to be good about offering them. Now first class space is almost non-existent.
American Airlines is known for being particularly stingy with international business class award space on its own flights. I redeem AAdvantage miles more than any other airline currency, but almost always for flights on their partners. So when there’s good space for valuable awards on American Airlines itself, I try to highlight it.
Qantas announced the release of ‘millions’ of award seats as Australia re-opens. So far Australians are expected to be able to leave their country next month (and return!) with rules for what they must do on arrival varying by state. There’s no announced timeline for visitors to come to Australia, but there’s reason to be hopeful.
At the point where they’re willing to take 60,000 miles the award, is it that hard to make seats available and call them saver?
Instead these are ‘web specials’ which means that there are no changes permitted. For simple itineraries that’s no big deal because American eliminated all cancel and redeposit fees for awards (for all members, this is no longer a benefit restricted to Executive Platinum and Concierge Key members). That means you can cancel the ticket, get your miles back, and book a new ticket.
One flight I like right now for redemption is American’s Charlotte – Frankfurt service where I’m seeing 4 business class saver awards on a majority of flights in November and for January through March.
What’s useful about this is the connectivity in and out of Charlotte, much of it pairable with this daily Boeing 777-200 flight.
Cathay Pacific is currently making business class awards widely available between the U.S. and Hong Kong for up to four passengers, from several gateway cities, in late spring and summer 2022. This allows you to connect beyond Hong Kong to much of Asia. And if you’re uncertain what the future holds, American AAdvantage no longer has award cancellation/redeposit fees.
For several years Lufthansa has limited first class award availability to partner frequently flyer programs. Space has only been open within 14 days of travel. If you wanted to redeem miles for first class awards farther out, you’ve had to use Lufthansa’s own Miles & More miles (with the exception of a handful of brief glitches).
Right now, for some reason, award nights at the Conrad Bora Bora are wide open through March 2022. Book for 89,000 Hilton points per night (a great value), and they’re fully cancellable. If you have Hilton points there’s no reason not to book a trip.
Right now American Airlines doesn’t appear to have access to all of the British Airways award inventory that BA is offering – and that is bookable by other airline partners.
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 »
