My wife woke up this morning without a ticket to Zurich. She had told her friends and family she was leaving today and would arrive on Saturday afternoon. She even told her parents her flight number. Small problem: the space had not opened. The flight was 12 hours away and she didn’t have a seat…yet.
As I made her coffee, I told her not to worry…just pack and the space would open shortly. Swiss is usually not so stingy with last-minute longhaul award space when there were plenty of seats open. This flight had been J9/C9/D9 all week, meaning there were at least nine business class seats for sale. Honestly, I’ve done this long enough to know when space opens and when it will not. I’m rarely wrong. But would today be the day?
6am. Nothing.
7am. Nothing.
8am. Nothing.
9am. The space opened on precisely the LAX-ZRH nonstop flight I wanted. I booked it for 55K Aeroplan miles and $5.60 in taxes, called to add the infant ticket (only 100CAD for business class), and checked them both in. I even scored a throne seat.
Whew!
I’m not telling this story to pat myself on the back (well, maybe just a little). I’m telling this story because if you are willing to wait, you will be rewarded. Many airlines tend to release last-minute award inventory when seats remain unsold. The Lufthansa Group carriers, including SWISS, Austrian, and LOT, are great examples of airlines you can score last-minute seats on. And this is saver space too: the cheapest available.
There were back-up options. She could have traveled the next day. There was also Lufthansa space to Frankfurt available with a connection. But I wanted the Los Angeles to Zurich nonstop flight because it is timed so perfectly for sleeping. It departs at 7:20p and arrives at 3:15p in Zurich, which is 6:15a in LA. A perfect night’s rest for little Augustine.
Unlike the longer, daytime westbound flight…where first class is just so much better when traveling with a little one…the relatively shorter overnight flight is geared for sleeping. In that case, business class is sufficient.
Tips for Booking Last Minute Award Space
It goes without saying that if a flight is sold out, you won’t find any award space on it.
Use ExpertFlyer to check how full a flight is. The more 9s you see across the board, the better your chances are to score last minute award space.
These airlines are better about releasing last-minute award space:
- Austrian Airlines
- Brussels Airlines
- Cathay Pacific
- Emirates
- Etihad
- Lufthansa
- SAS
- SWISS
- United Airlines
- Virgin Australia
Note the majority are Star Alliance. If you find yourself booking last-minute ticket, far better to have Star Alliance points or flexible currencies like AMEX or Chase than American or Delta points.
CONCLUSION
My wife is on her way to Zurich. Thank goodness that space opened up at the last minute…or else I’d be in the doghouse today. I could have booked her earlier this week via Chicago or Washington, but a daytime flight with Augustine and shorter overnight journey? No thanks.
Waiting till the last minute is not for everyone, but if you’re at all flexible, it really pays to wait.
Are you looking in United website? Or do you find these elsewhere? I am looking at today and tomorrow and there are zip.
I use United and Aeroplan.
Agreed, LH award availability is terrible lately… not even the day of… right now there are no F seats NYC-Germany – for the whole calendar.
J is not much better.
Of course if airlines were customer oriented they would release the seats at least 2-7 days before departure as it is obvious they aren’t going to sell them all to last minute purchasers.
I would love to learn from you how to do that on Delta. Seriously, the closer you get to the flight date the closer you need to spend 1MM Skypesos for a seat.
Forget about Delta. They do things differently. Once in a while, Virgin Atlantic and Air France open at the last minute, but not like they used to.
3 weeks ago my wife and I were in Hong Kong with an award flight home on AA in business class. Routing was horrendous. LAX – PHX – ORD – XNA. There were plenty of business class seats open on the HKG – DFW route but nothing was being released. I put in an ExpertFlyer alert for the HKG – DFW flight and 12 hours before the flight I was awakened by a text alert from ExpertFlyer. The seats had opened up! Got on the phone and had everything rebooked within 20 minutes of receiving the text! Had to downgrade to coach on the DFW – XNA leg, but it’s only a 50 minute flight and we got home in 17 1/2 hours instead of 29!
Matthew, can I cancel BA VERY last minute if I find something better?
You must cancel BA at least 24 hours before travel.
Does this include changing routing using AS miles on BA metal? (Currently have LHR-IAH, but am trying to get closer to SEA in BIZ or FC)
Yes, you can do that as well.
The lesson I learned from this story is a toddler can demand J class on day time and F on nighttime flights. 🙂
I would add more info about points transfer times and also any close in booking fees as not everything transfers instantly and some airlines charge close in fees for under 21 day award bookings.
Thanks for your input. I will follow this up with another post next week which will include these details.
Another helpful thing with star alliance is to use lifemiles. Transfer minimal points and buy the rest at 1.5c or thereabouts. More expensive than the sales but not terrible. That’s if you are short on points.
How many seats typically open up last minute? I can see the last minute option might be viable for one or two seats, but we are typically 4 when the kids come with and I’d be really nervous doing this on the day of.
Maybe not day of but as a family of five there are opportunities not necessarily day of but week of if you have flexibility and don’t mind booking hotels a little later. Often there is Swiss and Austrian availability to Europe for 4-5. And united (and even Ana) for 3-4 to Australia. Both in j.
Obviously increased change fees at lifemiles and Alaska have made things harder.
I’m flying with my two oldest kids to oz in a week. Wanted Saturday or Sunday but am flying on Friday as Cathay space opened up.
@Matthew – what LH routes are the best bets for First Class award options? TIA.
LAX is surprisingly good for last-minute seats. IAD, ORD, BOS, DFW, and IAH all good candidates. DEN and DTW used to be best, but now no longer have first class.
Did you have to pay for the throne seat or was that just luck?
Free. Post coming tomorrow.
Could you please share some experience with Singapore Airlines if you have done waitlist with them? Would SQ, by the same logic you mentioned in the article, release award space and clear waitlisted passengers with departure date closing in?
Danny, about a week before your flight if the waitlist has not cleared, call Singapore to check on it each day. Agents have been known to push it through, especially for couples or families traveling together.
Thanks a lot, Matthew!
LOT in not part of the Lufthansa group, it’s just part of Miles & More FFP
when award seats become available, do they become available at saver level or regular level?
i’m currently looking at flights on united, lufthansa and possibly swiss which show some saver award (about 70k) seats, all with connections, and more regular award seats (about 155k) incl for direct flts or flts with better connections. i’m torn between booking the best of what i can find now, or, inspired by this article, waiting in the hopes something better will open up at the last minute.
but if the last minute award seats are regular level rather than saver level, i might as well book what i can now.
Saver level.
wow!
thank you for all this useful information, and a motivational story, too!
now i just need to calm my nerves and wait…
yikes, close in booking fees are $75, on united. each way?
is that true for all of airlines?
is there any way to avoid that? book online vs call or vice versa?
matthew – how do i determine on expertflyer what seats are left and what class they are on? seat map just shows how many seats are left but nothing about class. Interested in UA49 over the next 2 days – thanks
Check fate availability. Look for the number of J/C/D seats on Expert Flyer. Hopefully they will be 9s.
If you think 9 am is last-minute for a 7 pm flight (LAX-ZRH on Swiss), it looks like they’ve gotten even stingier. I want to book this for a family member on an upcoming Saturday, so today I looked at revenue availability (there were 3 seats for sale in business this morning) and checked award availability almost constantly. Swiss did not release business-class award seats until about 4 hours before the flight (after 3 pm PT), but it looks like it did release all available seats. Many people would’ve already left for the airport by then.
Great data point. Thank you for sharing.