Tag Archives for award availability.
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.
Singapore Airlines is one of the world’s best carriers, some would even say the best overall. Their product isn’t just premium at the front end of the aircraft, they pay attention to little details in economy like a bit more legroom; cup holders and foot rests on long haul seats; quality food and one of the best entertainment systems. Service is known to be almost universally good.
What some people don’t realize is that they do not fly just to Singapore. They fly from Los Angeles to Tokyo. They fly from New York to Frankfurt and they fly from Houston to Manchester, England.
Star Alliance member ANA, a United Airlines partner, has offered one of the world’s best first class products for a long time – and it has kept getting better. Often underrated compared to Emirates, Air France and others, their new “The Suite” seat is outstanding; service is among the best in the world albeit tending towards Japanese formality; and the catering truly hard to beat, if not as varied as it once was.
Singapore Airlines frequently makes plenty of award space available towards the end of its booking calendar. If you’re searching 9 or more months in advance you have a good shot at finding a plethora of options, although right now there’s good close-in availability as well.
I want to make a few additional points though.
Qatar has one of the best business class product in the world in its ‘QSuites’ that offer doors and movable partitions that allow two and even four passengers to travel together in their own space.
Right now there’s fantastic award availability at the end of the booking window. You can use this for travel from the U.S. to Doha and beyond to the Mideast, India, the Maldives and even to Africa.
American Airlines miles are great for redeeming on partner airlines at great value, such as Japan Airlines to Asia and Iberia to Europe. However it can be tough to use AAdvantage miles to actually fly American, without paying a big premium in miles, especially if you want to fly up front. And most people want to use American’s miles to fly domestically.
Fortunately right now there’s surprisingly good award space in premium cabins between the West Coast and Hawaii, and on American’s premium flights between New York JFK and Los Angeles. It’s a great time to jump on these redemptions, even if you only think they might be useful, because American no longer charges a fee to cancel your award and redeposit the miles.
Connecting space within 2-3 days of travel can now be booked in Swiss first using United miles.
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 »
