award chart

Tag Archives for award chart.

American Airlines Ends Mileage Upgrade Awards August 12, Switches to Costly Delta-Style ‘Instant Upgrades’ That Slash Value Of Miles

by Gary Leff on June 12, 2025

Jun 12 2025

American Airlines is eliminating their mileage upgrade award chart August 12th. They’re replacing it with ‘instant upgrades’ using cash or miles. You’ll be charged a variable amount for upgrades, and you pay either the asking amount in money or the ‘equivalent’ in miles which will mean a low value per mile (almost certainly something around 1 cent per mile or a little higher or lower). This copies Delta Air Lines, and represents a significant hit to the value of miles for upgrades.

Hyatt’s March 25 Award Price Increases: Prices Soar At 118 Hotels, Book Now To Save

by Gary Leff on February 25, 2025

Feb 25 2025

Hyatt is keeping an award chart, and they’re not changing the points prices of that chart. That’s the good news, I suppose. But their annual category changes are out – going into effect in one month on March 25 – and they’re heavily biased towards price increases.

Alaska Airlines Begins Rolling Out Multi-Partner Award Tickets

by Gary Leff on February 15, 2025

Feb 15 2025

When Alaska rolled out a new distance-based award chart that covered all of their partners and all regions of the world, they said they would introduce the ability to combine different partner airlines on a single award ticket redemption. That’s something they had teased since joining oneworld and again promised for this winter.

Inside the Award Seat Crisis: Air Canada On Dynamic Pricing Of Partner Awards As Too Many Miles Chase Too Few Seats

by Gary Leff on February 10, 2025

Feb 10 2025

Airlines are at risk of killing their golden goose. Miles motivate customers, but customers need to be able to use their miles. Airlines have gotten better at selling their seats for cash, frequent flyer programs want to retain their margins, and so members get squeezed.

As a result, airline executives call for ‘revisiting the model’ of frequent flyer programs – the model that made them successful, multi-billion dollar enterprises.

Aeroplan Award Chart Changes Coming March 25: More Availability And Variable Pricing For United, Etihad, And More

by Gary Leff on February 6, 2025

Feb 06 2025

Air Canada Aeroplan is updating its award chart effective March 25th, so there’s almost two months’ notice. And nothing is changing with their partner redemption chart prices. There’s good and bad here in my view for what they’re now calling the ‘Air Canada and Select Partners’ award table.

Virgin Atlantic’s New Award Pricing: Off-Peak Business Class Starts At 29,000 Points With Lower Fees – But Peak Prices Soar

by Gary Leff on October 30, 2024

Oct 30 2024

Virgin Atlantic announced a month ago that they would move to dynamic award pricing. They refused to say more about what this would look like, which obviously led flyers to expect the worst. Changes are now live, and here’s what I am seeing.

Deep Dive Into Hyatt’s Free Night Award Category Changes, Not As Bad As 3-1 Negative Would Look!

by Gary Leff on February 27, 2024

Feb 27 2024

While we’re seeing 3-to-1 category increases (seems bad!) it’s interesting that these are very different from similar clusters of increases in the past.

Previously we’ve seen a lot of high end hotels become more expensive as redemptions. This time we’re seeing lower category hotels go up the most. The bulk of the action with these changes are in the bottom half of the chart’s distribution. The biggest grouping of changes is category 3 hotels becoming 4’s, while we also see 1’s become 2’s and 2’s become 3’s.

Scoop: American AAdvantage Expands Access To Alaska Airlines Award Space, But At What Cost?

by Gary Leff on February 6, 2024

Feb 06 2024

American AAdvantage has expanded access to Alaska Airlines award space in and out of California with new booking classes at higher mileage prices, but this change poses questions about the potential impact on the value of AAdvantage miles and the program’s overall benefits.

Maximizing The New Alaska Airlines Award Chart With Negative Price Stopovers (Better Than Free)

by Gary Leff on November 16, 2023

Nov 16 2023

The best value from distance-based charts often comes from maxing out distance, for instance flying West Coast – Tokyo to stay within a distance band and avoid going over… but also sometimes by booking two awards to get the pricing of two shorter distance bands rather than the combined higher-distance band. I’d like to explain this a little bit more.

Marriott Still Has A Free Night Award Chart, They Just Hide It From You (Here It Is, Revealed)

by Gary Leff on November 7, 2023

Nov 07 2023

In March 2022 Marriott officially eliminated award charts. It turns out that Marriott didn’t actually eliminate award charts they just hid them and raised prices.