Tag Archives for award availability.
Starting in July – through end of March 2024 (!) – you’ll frequently find four or more business class award seats per flight on Singapore Airlines between New York JFK and Frankfurt. And these flights aren’t bookable just using Singapore’s miles, they’re available if you want to spend Air Canada Aeroplan points as well – which will save you miles.
United Airlines is making business class award space available in a way that will not last for travel at the end of the booking window (mid-March 2024). Book right now and cancel later if you change your mind.
This is saver award space, so it can be booked through any of United’s partners and not just via MileagePlus.
Etihad’s Airbus A380 is returning to the skies, and with it their “First Apartment” which are among the most impressive inflight suites in the world. And award space is currently wide open on the London Heathrow – Abu Dhabi route with as many as 9 award seats per flight in some cases (book the whole cabin), and up to two daily flights on the aircraft.
Australia in business class is one of the toughest frequent flyer awards out there. It’s a long flight, people pay for business class seats, and there aren’t that many ways of getting there through many frequent flyer programs. If you want to use United miles, for instance, you often have to travel through Asia – or pay triple the miles.
Right now Qantas is making quite a bit of business class award space available on its Dallas Fort Worth – Sydney flight over the summer in the U.S.
Right now San Francisco – Singapore non-stop has amazing award availability as well. There are numerous dates where there are 8 award seats available, when booking into the future. In fact there are days where both of Singapore’s daily A350-900 San Francisco non-stops have 8 award seats available.
Singapore Airlines does a very nice job making premium cabin award seats available to its own members, often close to departure but almost certainly booked far into the future. The best availability for non-stop awards to Singapore from San Francisco is September – November right now.
Right now United Airlines MileagePlus is making a lot of summer business class seats available to and from Europe at saver level pricing. For MileagePlus members that means you can book these seats between 60,000 miles each way, and may be able to add connecting flights within the U.S. and also in Europe onto your itinerary.
You can now book ANA first class awards from June through end of schedule in and out of San Francisco. Details on how to do this are below. While at least three seats are most common, I’m seeing as many as five award seats open on some flights which is almost unprecedented.
There’s even better availability than before on the New York JFK – Frankfurt route in business class. There’s award space for a whole family, not just for a couple, and in some cases for an entire homeowner’s association.
And I’m highlighting it because the availability underscores some principles about Singapore Airlines award space that are worth understanding.
Bilt Rewards now has free Point.me award searches right inside its app. That way you can see where your Bilt points can take you – either ‘paying with points’ at 1.25 cents apiece, or transferring their points to an airline partner.
The best way to search Air France and KLM award space is on the AirFrance.us website. You hunt and peck a day at a time for availability. But they have a hidden award calendar and all you need to do to see it is leave your travel dates blank.
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 »
