In a perfect world, booking award flights would be as easy as booking a cash flight. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work like that. You’re gonna have to do some work in order to really get max value from your points. By this point, you’ve gone through all the other courses so you should be used to working hard in order to do this the right way. This is just a basic guide so please don’t think that it is comprehensive. There’s a lot more to learn.
Are your plans flexible?
If you really want to get max value out of your points, it helps to be as flexible as possible. Too many people want to go to a specific place during specific dates. In that scenario, you’re just relying on luck. The odds of finding good award space are going to be slim. Most travel hackers are flexible. For example, we had planned on going to Australia in August but then we found good award space in May. We booked the trip for May which is smart since good award space never popped up for August. Of course, if good award space never showed up, we would have put off the trip for some other time.
What’s good award space?
Speaking of good award space, what is it? Well in the end that is up to you. How much do you value your points/miles? In the 401 courses, we discussed how to value points and miles. No matter what people on the internet say, you have to determine what you are comfortable with. I don’t suggest going below 1.5cpp since you could get at least that through the Chase portal. While many people, including us do not suggest you use the portal, it’s still a good measuring stick.
The other issue you have to consider is whether you are using transferable points like URs or airline miles. For example, you can earn United miles through United (flying, spend, SUBs, etc) or you can transfer URs to United. The United miles earned through United might be considered less valuable than United miles earned through a Chase transfer. That’s because those UR’s could have been transferred to Hyatt where it’s pretty easy to redeem at 2cpp. Getting that value through United? Not so easy. So, someone might say that the United miles already in their account are worth 1.5cpp but if they needed to transfer from Chase, they would want to get at least 2cpp. I personally value my United miles at 2cpp but that doesn’t mean you should to. It all depends on what you’re comfortable with. Regardless of what you do, you need to have this figure before you proceed any further or else you won’t be able to evaluate.
Note that JetBlue and Southwest have set valuations. That means that no matter what flight you choose, you’ll always get the same cpp.
A few things to consider
- Finding good award space for domestic flights has become difficult. You’re better off finding good award space on international flights.
- Finding good award space in economy is not always easy. Business class has the best value but of course, it will cost more.
- Award space comes and goes. You’ll have better success if you plan as far ahead as possible and then keep checking over and over.
- Award space on some airlines is refundable. This means that you can book space even if you don’t know 100% if you can make the trip. If you decide to cancel later, you’ll get your points and fees back. Since this can change at any time, we’re not going to list which airlines have refundable award space and which ones don’t. Check this before you book.
- Some of the cheapest award space may be horrible flights. Be sure to check those flights carefully to make sure that there aren’t overnights or airport changes.
- Don’t transfer points to miles until you have found good award space. Don’t make assumptions. Once those points are transferred, they are stuck there.
With all that out of the way, let’s get working on booking those flights.
Step 1 – Check cash prices
This might seem like a strange place to start but checking cash prices will help you figure out what airlines are an option in addition to helping you calculate cpp. Using Google flights is your best bet. You should identify the cheapest flight that you would take. Let’s assume that we want to go from MCO to CDG for a week in March. I know we said to be flexible but you have to start somewhere. If this doesn’t work out, we’ll try a different location.
As you can see, Google Flights will show us the cheapest flights on a monthly calendar but that doesn’t mean that those are going to be the final prices and/or the best flights. For now, we’ll start with the 10th to the 17th to see what we can do for $525.
Those flights look pretty good. A few things to note here. The JetBlue flight comes with a really tight connection at JFK. I wouldn’t want to risk that. The British Airways flight comes with a change of airport. I really don’t suggest that at all. Let’s stick with the American Airlines flight connecting in PHL. Not it’s time to select the return flight.
There’s that pesky change of airport again. If we don’t want to do that, the price jumps up to $628. That Delta flight was cheaper but let’s stay with this American flight first. I’ll spare you the screenshot but that $628 price is basic economy. It does come with a free carry on plus personal items. If you want a main cabin ticket, you’ll have to pay $828. What makes the most sense for you will depend upon your preferences.
I went back to look at that Delta flight. $584 for basic economy which includes a free carry on and $784 for main cabin. With these as your two best options with similar schedules, you just have to determine what makes the most sense. Are you loyal to one airline over another? If so, you’ll likely be paying for a full fare ticket so you can get your loyalty points. If not, then that cheapest basic economy flight makes more sense. For example, I have star alliance gold so normally I’d want to fly on United. Doing that will change the price to $821. The fact that there is a flight as cheap as $584 is irrelevant. If you don’t care about loyalty, seat selection or checked bags, then you’d go with $584.
Note 1 – cheapest isn’t always the best. You have to compare to the flight that you would actually take. Let’s assume that there’s a flight for $500 but it requires an 18 hour layover somewhere or 4 connections. You’re not gonna deal with that right? If not, don’t bother considering it.
Note 2 – There are lot of discount international carriers. In order to compare apples to apples, you have to fully price out the flight since some of these carriers don’t even allow for free carry ons.
Step 2 – Determine your options
In step 1, we were considering all airlines (assuming you’re not trying to maintain status). In step 2, we might not have that luxury. Your options are going to be limited to the points and miles you have. Let’s assume you only have Chase URs.
URs can be transferred to the following airlines:
-Aer Lingus AerClub
Aer Lingus partners with several Oneworld airlines, including British Airways, Iberia, and Qatar
-Air Canada Aeroplan
Aeroplan points can be redeemed for flights on over 45 partners, including United, -Lufthansa, and Etihad
-Air France-KLM Flying Blue
-British Airways Executive Club
A useful partner that allows you to book travel with Oneworld alliance members like American Airlines, Alaska Airlines, and Qatar Airways
-Emirates Skywards
A popular choice among frequent travelers, but fuel surcharges make award travel expensive
-Iberia
Uses Avios, which can be a better value for some flights to Europe
-JetBlue TrueBlue
-Singapore Airlines
Part of the Star Alliance.
-Virgin Atlantic Flying Club
Gives you access to a variety of SkyTeam alliance partners, including AirEuropa, China Airlines, Hawaiian Airlines, and Air New Zealand
That’s a big list which is one of the reasons why Chase is the gold standard in travel hacking. The only problem is that navigating all of the different international airlines can be complicated. Unfortunately, they aren’t all as straightforward as their domestic counterparts. So your first decision here is whether you want to keep this simple or make it more complicated. At some point, you should learn about these other travel partners and how to find good award space but this course is to just cover the basics so we’ll keep it easy.
If you’re gonna keep it easy, you really only have two domestic options: United and JetBlue. As we previously discussed, transferring points to JetBlue is not a great option. That leaves us with United (for this example).
Step 3 – Searching award space
Since our only option is to United, we’re gonna login to our United account. For award space, we always want to search for one way flights. Even though we are flexible, we are going to start with the March 10th date we were using for the cash flight. Here’s how your search should look:
Be sure that one way and book with miles is checked. Then click find flights. Here’s the results:
A few things should jump out at you. The first is the 7 day calendar up top. That’s helpful. The next is the 30-day calendar link below that. The third is the blue box that says 19% off Cardmembers. The fourth is the blue Saver Award space. All of that is important. Saver award space can be booked on partner airlines so if we were more experienced, we’d want to search other Star Alliance partners to see if their flights are priced lower (in points).
If you do this long enough, you can do the math in your head and you’d know that this lowest award space is horrible. Regardless, we want the lowest so let’s click on 30 day calendar. This is the result:
As you can see, that $32.3k space is the lowest. Also note that there is a fee of $5.60. At this point, I’m going to not even bother looking at a return flight but let’s complete this exercise. The cheapest return flight is $39,400 miles with a fee of $88.51. Ouch. Let’s add those up. To book this trip, we’d need 71,700 points plus $94.11 cash. Those numbers are very important.
Step 4 – Doing the math
The last three steps gave us all of the figures that we need. We know how much are points are worth (URs are worth 2ccp), we know what the cash flights are and we know how many points/miles are required to book the award space. You need to pick the cash flight you want to compare this to. Let’s assume you’re going to go as cheap as possible so you choose that Delta flight for $584.
Now you need to subtract the cash portion of the award space from that cash price. This is because points/miles is about saving you money and you’re not saving that cash portion of the award space. $584 – $94.11 = $489.89. So another way to look at this is that you would be using 71,700 points/miles in order to avoid paying $489.89. Does that make sense?
On a calculator, type in 489.89, then press the division sign and type in 71,700 and press enter. You’ll get 0.006832. Now multiply by 100. You’ll get 0.6832. This provides you with the redemption value expressed as cents per point or cpp. This is an absolutely horrible valuation and under no circumstances should you consider it.
At this point, your options are to either book the cash flight, look at other airports or look at other destinations. That’s a pretty good cash price so I’d just pay the cash but if you are dead set on only using points/miles, I’d start searching for other destinations. I suppose you could also ignore the advice of 90% of travel hackers and use the Chase portal for a better cpp.
Step 5 – Booking the flight
Although the cpp didn’t work out in our example, let’s assume that it did. The process at this point is fairly straightforward. If the points are in your Chase account, you’ll transfer them to your United account. Just be sure to transfer only the points you need. Refresh your United account and you should see them. Book the flight and pay the fee. It’s a simple process.
Step 6 – Monitor the flight
You might think that you’re done at this point but you’d be wrong. The first thing you need to do is set up a Google flight alert for your flight and any others that you are willing to take. Prices could drop unexpectedly which could significantly change the cpp. An $800 flight is going to have a higher cpp than a $400 flight. Thankfully this is easy to do as Google will email you with every price alert. Have a figure in mind to where you’ll want to switch to cash. While cash prices don’t always match up with award space, sometimes there is a correlation. Thus, don’t assume that the award space has stayed the same. It might not fluctuate as much as the cash price but it certainly could change. If it goes down, recalculate the cpp. If it still makes sense to use points, rebook the flight to save the points.
Conclusion
Of course, there’s a lot more to it but for the basics, this is how you do it. The challenge is finding good award space but practice makes perfect. Over time you’ll pick up more skills. There’s always more to learn. Join our Facebook group to ask questions and learn from others.
But wait, there’s more! Since booking domestic flights is a little different, I’ll include an example below.
Domestic flight example
Although it’s difficult to find good award space for domestic flights, I still wanted to provide an example. It largely follows the steps above but I would change step 1 to search for one-way flights instead of round trips. This is because it is much easier to book one-way flights domestically. If a round trip is $300, the one-way flights should add up to $300. What’s ever better is that it is much easier to use two different airlines than it is on an international flight.
For this example, we’re going to go from TPA to North Bend, Oregon (OTH) on March 8th. I purposely picked this routing since it’s one of the more expensive domestic flights you can take from TPA. Here’s the results:
As you can see, that $379 price is the cheapest. However, United’s basic economy does NOT include a carry on bag. I’m going to assume you’ll need one so a regular main cabin ticket is actually $464. Remember, while you want to compare apples to apples, you want to also compare what you would actually book. If it was another airline that included a carry on bag and you didn’t mind booking basic economy, then you would compare that price even though the award space doesn’t have basic economy restrictions.
Back over to the United website, the award space looks like this:
As you can see, there are two Saver Awards, one for Cardmembers and one for anyone. Let’s do the math.
$464 – $11.20 = $452.80. Divide that by 15,000 and then multiply that by 100. The result is 3.01. Really nice!
This is now where domestic flights get an additional step. You can either just book the flight regardless of the return flight or you can see if the this is within your budget. Let’s assume the cpp on the way back is really bad. That technically has zero impact on your flight there. However, if the cash price is so high that you couldn’t afford to go, then that will dictate your actions here (you won’t be going). If the cash price is doable, then you could book one flight on points and the other with cash. Since United is the only option here, the return flight doesn’t make for a good example so let’s change things a little.
While you are flying into OTH, you are going to spend some time there and then finish your trip in Portland. You’ll get to Portland one way or another and then fly out of there several days later. Let’s see the options at that point. It would look like this:
Well that gives us a lot of options and makes it pretty easy. We know that Delta and American include carry on with their basic economy flights so that $128 price is what we are going to go with. That Delta flight has a long layover but if you want to leave in the morning, it might be the best option. Let’s leave at night and go with the American flight.
Since we are still just working with URs, we are only going to check United award space. If we had American, Delta and Alaska miles, we could search them as well. Here’s what United is showing us:
I knew going into that that there was no way United was going to have good award space for such a cheap cash price but I’ll let you do the math here yourself. Remember, we are using that $128 price on American to calculate the cpp as you want to use the flight you would book. Let’s assume you are not a cardmember so you are going to use the 7:07 flight. The cash price for that flight is irrelevant. It could be $10,000 and it doesn’t matter since we’ve already established that the best cash flight for you is $128. This is important because some people like to brag that they scored a great deal because the cash price on their flight was really high. That doesn’t matter when there’s a cheaper alternative that you would have otherwise taken.
If you did the math right, you’ll see that this redemption is not a good one. I really like this example because it shows how we found a good redemption to an out of the way airport where the cash prices are high. However, the cash prices on the way home from another airport were cheaper so we paid cash through a different carrier. While we didn’t use points for the entire trip, we flew roundtrip across the country for $139.20 ($128 plus $11.20)! That’s really good and it’s thanks to points. Using points doesn’t always have to involve a nearly free trip every single time. Sometimes its about getting a great deal and I don’t know about you but flying round trips coast to coast for under $140 is pretty good, especially when you can avoid ultra low cost carriers.
Stay tuned for future courses that will discuss more advanced topics.