Earlier I wrote about how some of the most lucrative award travel redemptions are often the most boring. Here, I want to point out my current list of the 10 best airline award ticket sweet spots.
Top 10 Airline Award Ticket Sweet Spots
There’s a dividing line between aspirational and practical and my list below takes both into account. Generally speaking, I prefer to pay more to redeem via a program that I trust and find easy to work with. For example, I’ll spend 100K Air Canada Aeroplan miles for Lufthansa First Class versus 50K Asiana Club miles because Aeroplan makes it simple and easy to book, change, or cancel online while Asiana Club has all sorts of onerous restrictions on redemptions, like only being able to book over the phone with limited call center hours and a three-day advance booking requirements (which of course makes many Lufthansa First Class awards virtually impossible because that space is not released until a day or two before travel). Aeroplan is also a transfer partner of most flexible bank point currencies while Asiana is only a Marriott partner.
I love aspirational awards and try to concentrate my redemptions in that direction, but I will use my miles for anything that makes sense, like shorthaul economy class.
Delta Air Lines Transatlantic Business Class Awards Using Virgin Atlantic Miles
It used to be a painstakingly laborious process to find space, but now seats.aero makes it easy to find available space. When you can travel from Los Angeles to Paris or Seattle to Amsterdam for only 50K miles in business class plus $5.60 in taxes (taxes are a bit more in the opposite direction).
Again, start here. The Virgin award calendar can also be used to locate Delta award space, but I prefer seats.areo. It’s a great deal and Delta offers a very solid product onboard.
You can earn Virgin Atlantic through flexible currencies like American Express, Capital One, and Chase.
ANA First + Business Class Awards Using Virgin Atlantic Miles
More theoretical than practical of late, ANA business and first class awards using Virgin miles remain an excellent value. You can search for this space on the United or Air Canada websites and seats.areo has a tool for ANA first class space. Price is excellent with only modest fees:
- US West Coast ⇄ Japan
- 45,000 Flying Club points in business class
- 72,500 Flying Club points in first class
- US East Coast ⇄ Japan
- 47,500 Flying Club points in business class
- 85,000 Flying Club points in first class
You can earn Virgin Atlantic through flexible currencies like American Express, Capital One, and Chase.
Fiji Airways Or Air Tahiti Nui Business Class Using Alaska Airlines Miles
Alaska Airlines still has some amazing sweet spots in its programs, though changes are on the horizon as it introduced a unified award chart later this year. For now, though, you can travel to Australia or New Zealnad via Fiji (55K miles) or Tahiti (60K miles) in business class with a stopover as long as you’d like in those island paradises.
You can earn Alaska Airlines miles through co-branded credit cards. It also may make sense to purchase miles during discounted miles promotions.
United Airlines Domestic Awards Using Turkish Airlines Miles
Turkish Airlines Miles & Smiles recently gutted its award chart for both Turkish and Star Alliance flights. Considering Turkish passes on fuel surcharges, there is not a lot of value left in the program if you are traveling beyond Istanbul. But one sweet spot remains domestic travel in the United States.
For 10K one-way in economy class or 15K one-way in business class you can travel between any two points within the USA. So, for example, a Newark (EWR) to Washington, DC (DCA) flight costs the same as a Newark to Honolulu (HNL) flight. You won’t find much value on shorthaul redemptions, but for travel to the Hawaiian islands or Alaska, Turkish Miles & Smiles can make a lot of sense.
You can earn Turkish Airlines Miles & Smiles points via Capital One or Citi.
Air France Or KLM Flights Using Flying Blue Miles
With transatlantic business class starting at just 50,000 miles one-way and economy class at 15,000 miles one-way, there is a lot to love about KLM and Air France bookings on Flying Blue. Plus, Flying Blue allows free stopovers in Paris or Amsterdam, even on one-way awards.
You’ve got to be flexible in your travel dates and often these preferred rates are only available during the low season (and sometimes at the last minute). The downside of the variable pricing model is that sometimes these same flights can cost over 700,000 miles in business class…yes. It pays to book ahead and be flexible. But if you can be flexible, you can often score great deals and when the space is cheap, there are often enough award seats for the entire family.
Tip: When searching for award space on the Flying Blue website, don’t enter a travel date and you will see a calendar of cheapest fares, making it easier to locate “saver” space.
You can earn Flying Blue points through flexible currencies like American Express, Capital One, and Chase.
Lufthansa First Class Using Aeroplan Miles
As I mentioned above, you can book Lufthansa First Class for much cheaper via other channels like Asiana, ANA when booking a round-trip ticket, or even Avianca LifeMiles.
But when I redeem miles for Lufthansa First Class, I use Aeroplan. Becuase it’s easy. And time is money. So while 100K for a one-way in Lufthansa First Class may not be like the old Los Angeles – Frankfurt – Tokyo for 60K in first class pricing of a few years back, it remains a good deal. Importantly, Lufthansa remains a great source of last-minute first class award space…unlike SWISS or Air France which simply do not release space to those without status or to partners.
It used to be a painstakingly laborious process to find space, but now seats.aero makes it easy to find available space.
You can earn Aeroplan miles through flexible currencies like American Express, Capital One, and Chase.
British Airways Shorthaul Flights With Avios
I redeem a lot of miles to fly between London and Basel, Switzerland (BSL). Last-minutes fares can be quite high, but using British Airways Avios means tickets are as cheap as 4K miles each plus $24, which certainly beats a $300 ticket.
In fact, shorthaul flights on many carriers may make sense using Avios, since BA uses a distance-based award chart and we know there is often no correlation to flight length and price.
You can earn British Airways Avios through flexible currencies like American Express, Capital One, and Chase.
Qatar Airways Business Class Using American Airlines Miles
I consider the Qatar Airways business class product the best in the world and it is a steal using American Airlines miles. For 75K miles one-way you can fly from North America to Africa 70K to the Middle East or India in business class using your AA miles.
Qatar releases award space sporadically, but when it does it often releases 2-4 seats in business class on every flight. The Qsuite product is also a great way to travel with the family around the world since four suites can essentially merge into one large space.
We’ve been waiting for so long for an AAdvantage devaluation but it thankfully has not occurred yet. That day will come, but enjoy it while it lasts.
Is it really the best? You might enjoy reading some of my Qatar Airways reviews below:
You can earn AA miles via Bilt and a portfolio of American Airlines co-branded credit cards.
Iberia Business Class Using Iberia Avios
There’s a lot of value in the Iberia Avios program, especially when redeeming miles on Iberia flights. Iberia has peak and off-peak times and during the off-peak period, you can fly between the USA and Madrid (flights between 3,001 to 4,000 miles) for only 34,000 miles plus reasonable taxes/fees.
It’s worth looking into and you can transfer points from one Avios program (like British Airways or Qatar Airways) to another.
You can earn Iberia Avios through flexible currencies like American Express, Capital One, and Chase.
Turkish Airlines Business Class Using Turkish Airlines Miles
Turkish is a carrier I love because the onboard product is quite nice in business class. As frustrating as its Miles & Smiles customer service can be, if you find yourself needing to travel to Istanbul, 65,000 miles for a nonstop flight between the USA and Istanbul is not bad, even with an extra $300 in taxes/fees. One reason I say that is because Turkish use to consistently offer the most reasonable one-way business class fares, but does not seem to do that any longer.
You can earn Turkish Airlines Miles & Smiles points via Capital One or Citi.
CONCLUSION
This rather short list shows that even in 2024, miles and points remain very valuable when it comes to air travel redemption. The key to maximizing your points is flexility. The price for the same flight on one day and the next can vary by magnitudes in terms of miles required. While I prefer to use. my miles for premium cabin travel, sometimes it makes more sense to fly in economy class.
What is your favorite award spot sweet spot?
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United Business class to India for 88k miles on LH or LX, sometimes cheaper to book via Aeroplan
My experience flying premium cabins is that service and catering are dependent on how many business pax and famous people are on board. Especially on Asian carriers it’s palpable how much they fan over media popular types.
The VS programme also has some AFKL sweet spots e.g. 48k each way for business class between NBO and Europe.
Alaska miles for Fiji Airways is going up next week
Surprised ANA’s program doesn’t make the list altho fuel surcharges and roundtrip booking requirements certainly make it tougher to come across value
Of course, the best “sweet spot” redemption is the one you can actually find and book. For travel that works for you.
Great travel with points is getting progressively harder to find as availability dries up (or gets more expensive) and as more “players” competing for award seats get in the game.
There’s so many ways to earn lots of points, I’ve come to the point that I don’t care about the “sweet spot best deals” anymore. I’ll “overpay” if it means I actually get to travel
Exactly.
The best deals I have scored wouldn’t sound overwhelming on the surface, but when you’re trying to move 2 adults and 2 kids in a premium cabin from an airport that’s dominated by Southwest and Allegiant, on dates that work for everyone’s schedule– well, some compromises have to be made.
Generally it’s a combination of points and cash (might be service fees, or buy one leg/points on the other, or buy 2 tickets/awards for 2 others, etc…)
Ha! We often have that issue as well (with a crew of 2 adults + 2 kids) . Sometimes we take what we can get. Even with just the 2 adults sometimes it’s a choice between an “OK” deal or nothing rather than a “great” deal.
What’s the expression? Something like “The enemy of good enough is perfect”
For now, my most common redemption is 8000 Lifemiles + taxes and a ticketing fee for some intra-Europe flights where otherwise I am looking at $200-320 one-way tickets.
My second or third most common redemption are some 8k-11k AA mile redemptions between ORD and points north and 9k-11k to go between DCA and the Midwest (via ORD).
My third or fourth most common redemption is Scandinavia to LHR using BA miles.
I haven’t been flying much the last 5 years but recently did some research and was able to a couple of awards that while not exceptional are certainly solid for my type of travel.
LifeMiles for 2 business class seats one way from ORD-VIE for 63,000 miles each.
Flying Blue, 2 business class seats one way from Europe to IAD for 50,000 miles each.
Takes some time search and too many awards I saw were outrageous. I saw Flying blue awards often between 500,000 and 1,000,000 miles which is crazy. Then you have AA with it routing/layovers that just screw people like flying from Europe to Dallas to Washington (DC) taking 54 hours.
Once we are in Europe I might change the return flight depending on availability.
The Avios short haul flights I always wonder about luggage fees. While we try to travel with just a carry on bag and a backpack I’m not sure how strict BA and partners are in Europe in forcing checked bags and the fees for them.
Currently, I’d say any long haul business class route that prices <70K each way is quite a good deal. Typically, transoceanic rates for J are running at 70-90K each way these days, which is up a bit from when I started awards travel 7 years ago. 50K is excellent, and 63K points is about what Qsuites runs Asia-Europe when using a transfer bonus.
50k Alaska miles +$149 for Condor biz class one way to FRA/MUC from SFO/LAX/all US ports and Los Cabos
8k or fewer UA miles short haul Y within Europe or within the US, including high cost regional destinations
20k AA miles one way biz anywhere in Australia eg SYD PER on QF – same seat would be 42k Qantas pesos
20k Qantas pesos for one-way biz in Europe on KLM
Out of Australia to Asia its 40k aa miles in biz or 50k in first. United charges 52k miles which isn’t bad either. Virgin Atlantic charges 40k to Asia. Snagged a biz seat from Bali to Sydney late last year.
I still remember when iberia were charging 950euros for a last minute Y flight from ibiza to nice.
I used BA avios and selected the option that was 1k points plus 70eur.
That 1000 avios saved me 880 euros!
Nice!
I find Asia is the last region where good redemptions do exist. Flying within Asia from China or to China with Delta Skymiles is good. Flying within Japan on JAL through Avios is good. Flying in and out of HKG with Avios on CX is okayish.
A few of my favorites at the moment:
20k AA miles for JL Biz Class within Asia Region 1, i.e. Tokyo – Seoul. On a CPP basis, that is often a very good deal.
40k AA miles for QR J from Asia 1/Asia 2 to the ME, or the same 40k for CX/QF J from Asia 1/Asia 2 to Australia.
80k DL miles for CI, VN, or KL J from Asia to Europe.
Yes, that last one actually exists. I booked one a couple of months ago. 15 hours in CI J from TPE – AMS for 80k SkyPesos is a smoking hot deal. You do have to be ready to pounce 330 days out, or pretty close to it, and then hope the schedule sticks.
How about 25 hours in Business class for 75K miles or 23 hours in First for 50K miles