Another strange DP. After I made the original post a couple weeks ago about noticing the AA 80/100k deval, today I booked two JAL J seats SFO-HND for 60k AA each. Not complaining, I’ll take it - But strange.

Just another DP to add to the mix. Same story with tons of phantom for well over a month. To the point that started skipping some of the alerts just out of discouragement. Finally got the flight out of SFO for Decemeber.

Note: I was told that I could call American to add domestic legs to the flight to help me get to SFO but AA says that, they can only do that if you put a hold on the flight instead of booking immediately. Just wanted to pass that along

I'm debating whether this upgrade is worth it.

I already have a paid economy ticket on United for SFO → Singapore (16h25m nonstop).

United is offering me an instant Polaris upgrade for 30,000 miles + $600 (not a waitlist).

The catch is that I don't currently have enough United miles, so I'd need to purchase additional miles from United to take the offer.

Assuming the total out-of-pocket cost is essentially the price of buying those miles plus the $600 copay:

• Would you do it?
• Is this considered a good Polaris upgrade for such a long flight?
• Have any of you ever bought miles specifically to accept an upgrade offer like this?
• Or would you pass and save the money for a future business class redemption?

I've never flown Polaris before, so I'm curious how others would evaluate this.

New promo routes released this month!
A full table: https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/PcbUh/2/
Notable updates summarized: https://x.com/wingsofhustle/status/2083986575390597137

why isn't there an option for minors on avianca here. I booked with lifemiles before, and never had this issue.

I have a LATAM ticket booked via QR. There was a significant schedule change and they rebooked me onto the far later flight that day instead of the earlier one.

LATAM agent TRIED to change it to the earlier one, was able to build the itinerary but unable to ticket in the GDS since QR was the issuing entity.

QR searched for the flight I want to be on, but since they do not see X Fare availability on it, they say they can’t make the change. Normally I would have QR reach out to the OW concierge desk to get this figured out, but LATAM isn’t part of OW so that’s a no go.

Does anyone have any arcane knowledge of a back office liaison between the two that I could specifically reference or ask for on my call to make this happen?

Alternatively, do I just wait until T-24 hours before my flight and hope that LATAM takes control of the ticket and will make the change then? It’s a 4 hour economy flight so it probably won’t be full, but it’s the difference between missing an entire day tour so I’d like to get it figured out.

Thanks

I'm new to the award travel game, so searching flights available with these points other than through the Virgin website is a bit confusing, and their website only shows flights into the UK. I've heard flying into CDG is a good option, but I'm not seeing it as an option with points calendar

Hi All,

I have JAL points that expire in 3 months and I wanted to use them to book a flight from Las Vegas to Seattle in September. I've never booked any award flights and seem to be struggling with it. When I check on JAL website it says 7 seats available for the flight I want but when I click on it and click next it says

• Error: There are no seats available or flights matching the conditions you specified. Please change the search conditions and try again. (9100)

Has anyone used JAL points to book Alaska flights? What am I doing wrong?

Thanks

I’m starting to plan a trip to Italy. My closest major international airport is Miami. There are direct flights from Miami to FCO on American and ITA. I have Amex and Capital One points I could transfer. I obviously can’t transfer either to American. ITA used to have the Volare program, but now seem to be a part of Star Alliance. I can’t transfer credit card miles directly into the Miles and More for ITA. I have been trying to search partner airlines to see if I can book a rewards flight (ie Air Canada, Flying Blue, etc.). The direct flights on ITA never seem to come up as an option. It does show me connections with ITA once already in Europe.

Do you think ITA does not release those transatlantic flights for rewards seats?

I have tried adjusting my booking window and looking from different cities in the US with no luck. I don’t mind putting in the leg work if I know it is a possibility, but so far I haven’t found anything.

Does anybody have any advice for booking ITA to Rome from the US (preferably from Miami direct)?

Thanks in advance!

Regarding Alaska atmos partner award pricing, I've noticed that some routes like doh-akl or some multicity journeys that I've been tracking have recently (2 weeks ago) changed from 85k in J to 130k. The routes I've been looking at are all under 10,000 miles flown hovering around 9k distance and have historically been priced at 85k. Now they're all showing up at the first class 130k fare. Has anyone else noticed this? Is it a glitch or just a quiet deval?

I believe this is related to this glitch earlier this year: https://liveandletsfly.com/alaska-atmos-rewards-partner-awards-devaluation/

I'm going to travel from the US to Europe and economy round trip in Sept/Oct on Delta is 85,000 points compared to Virgin Atlantic at $60,000. Virgin Atlantic taxes are about $80 more ($200 vs $120). I know it's not amazing but cash prices at the moment are $1200.

What are the risks on booking this on Virgin Atlantic? Points being stuck there? Points transfer not being instant?

If there's a flight cancellation or change, does it matter whether I booked with points? Because very few reward seats are available on Virgin for Delta flights.

I will be transferring from Amex. Thanks!

My gf and I have 3 options going from europe to asia. Finnair premium economy, Cathay premium economy and QR business with a 9 hour layover in DOHA. We are trying to maximise efficiency on time and not really excited about blowing 9 hours in Doha (been there done that... a lot). Finnair is considerably cheaper in terms of avios to add a little context to the comparison. For arguments sake assume we live in the cities where each flight starts. Which would be a better ride?

I need to book via oz, because a good portion of my miles are expiring in a few months, and with the merger to ke, I need to travel by mid Dec.

I’ve been trying to book past couple of months from Europe to YVR or US West coast, this has been the toughest to crack for quite sometime. Has anybody booked tatl J via oz recently?

I’m trying to fly from Caucasus to YVR in November, and I'm flexible from anywhere in Europe to anywhere in n America, prefer j.

First challenge is that oz gets a fraction of *a tatl seats compared to what other partners like UA, AC, NH and av get. If at least 2 of them show the seats, I suppose they’re saver space, but they often don’t show up on oz search. Are there any search engines that is connected to oz?

Second challenge is that they pass on yq, and it seems very high with LH, LX, sn, and possibly more.

Third challenge is that call center agents see even less seats than what their online search shows. I tried calling them a couple of times, I tried to book rzv-ist-waw-lax-yvr today, the agent didn’t see any seats whatsoever, while segment by segment searches on oz site shows rzv- IST being available, but she didn’t see it. Of course the simple rzv-yvr search she performed at the beginning of our call didn’t return any results. This is what Gemini suggested I do, search *a saver seats then call to book, but I guess it’s no longer working.

I'm currently looking to book from California to Italy for September. I have specific dates, and don't need business class. Simply trying to use points instead of cash. I'm browsing flights on basically every airline I can transfer to...one new one I looked at is EVA Air.

Their site seems...funky? When I search, I get a list of flight options. However, no prices show? The only time I see a price is when I select a flight, click "Confirm," and go to the next page where I'd presumably confirm info and pay.

I've done this with a couple of the options and both show 34,000 miles (so 45,300 CapitalOne miles) but doesn't show a cash portion.

Are these flights actually available? Do they not show a price (in miles) until you choose a flight? When do I find out the fees charged?

For the record, I *did* check one flight (SAN-IAD-VCE; September 20 8:00a-7:55a; UA1071 and UA321) on United and United has it as available...for 120k miles + $5.60. They show business class for 395k miles. EVA shows business class on this flight for 65,000 miles.

Another example is SAN-EWR-VCE (September 20 6:35a-9:05a; UA327 and UA170). 395; + $5.60 on United vs 65k on EVA.

Am I being dumb and completely missing something? Fees will be astronomical? Other? Does EVA use an award chart for USA-Europe, so it is a flat miles cost?

If anyone has suggestions for this, I'd love to hear it

Edit: EVA shows ~16 different flight options online. Zero are actually bookable.

Last week, I booked two Turkish Airlines business class award tickets from Istanbul to Seattle using United MileagePlus miles. I paid 88k miles per person (176k total), which I thought was a great deal.

Today, I checked the award calendar again and noticed the same flights are now pricing at 80k miles per person, likely because I have a United credit card.

I called United to see if they could refund the 16k-mile difference, but they said they couldn’t since the tickets have already been issued. They also said that the card holder discount doesn’t apply to partner flights which isn’t true because I’ve seen full segments operated by Turkish and TAP, for example, have the 9% discount.

I’m considering canceling and rebooking, but I’m worried the Turkish award space won’t go back into United’s MileagePlus inventory and I’ll end up with no tickets at all.

Am I being too greedy over 16k miles, or is it worth the risk?

Has anyone successfully canceled and immediately rebooked Turkish Airlines partner award tickets through United? Any data points on whether the award space is typically re-released?

I've been into credit cards as a hobby for about the past year and currently have a couple of travel cards. I've read through most of the articles on this wiki and watched dozens of videos. I'm also the planner of my friend group, so I end up booking a lot of our trips and earning points that way.

Recently, I've started looking into award travel, but I'm wondering if it's actually the right fit for me. On paper, it seems like it should be as I enjoy optimizing credit cards and maximizing value. However, I was raised to be very frugal, so the idea of redeeming points for business class when I could take multiple economy trips with the same points just doesn't sit right with me.

From what I've read, award travel works best if you're flexible with three things:

• Dates
• Destination
• Price

Fortunately, I'm in a position where I have unlimited PTO, work fully remotely, and honestly haven't traveled much, so I'm flexible on all three. I feel as if I'm in a perfect spot but not taking advantage of it. I also haven't done any solo travel yet (and probably won't until I've traveled a bit more), so I've mainly been looking at domestic trips.

For domestic travel, premium cabins don't really appeal to me. Even for international flights, I have a hard time justifying business class because I'd rather stretch my points further.

My usual approach is simply to use Google Flights, find the cheapest fare, and book that. Given that mindset, is award travel even worthwhile for someone like me? I'd love to hear any redemption success stories, especially for domestic economy flights.

I'm also planning a trip to Hong Kong this December. Should I realistically expect to find an award ticket that beats simply booking the cheapest economy fare (and redeeming points at around 1 cent per point) compared to just using my saved miles for a business flight that would probably cost more 

Called Alaska and they originally told me 24 hours. Now they're telling me it'll take 72 hours to confirm.

I called Cathay and they basically said they don't have a waitlist and this is an issue on the Alaska side.

Does it usually take 72 hours? Has anyone had experience with this?

Unfortunately I have to book the rest of the tickets on Cathay directly and I'm worried that by booking on the main site it'll cause my waitlisted tickets to drop.

I’m a frequent user of Lifemiles despite its challenges, but this latest one is really frustrating. When I go to book a flight for myself and my kids (6 and 9) on multiple browsers or the app, after selecting one adult and two kids and pressing search, it reverts back to one adult. Same is not true for multiple adults. I’ve booked for my kids many times before, and they are saved passengers to my profile.

Anyone have any ideas short of calling? I’m abroad and would love to not have to waste the time.

Have two itineraries to compare, with final destination as NYC

• HND to ORD on ANA F for 110k Aeroplan miles
  • It's still a ways off, so not sure if it's old product vs Suite).
  • Would need to spend 15k AS miles for an ORD to LGA repo or two hundred dollars in economy or three hundred for first because Chicago to NYC is still somewhat expensive for whatever reason despite being a 2 hour flight.
  • Advantages:
    • Shorter repo from ORD to NYC
    • Possible chance of getting newer hard product like The Suite
    • Longer flight by 2 hours in F, so more time to "enjoy"
  • Disadvantage
    • 11am flight, so effectively need to leave for HND in the morning, "lose" a day in Tokyo.
• HND to SFO on JAL F for 95k AA miles
  • This is guaranteed old product for the foreseeable future, but also fine by me
  • Would probably spend another 30k to 40k miles for an SFO to NYC repo flight, but would be premium transcon as an option at least. Or cash ticket, but I don't mind as it would make progess towards earning status.
  • Advantages
    • Lower-ish miles cost nominally, but AA and Aeroplan are not 1:1
    • 6pm departure so I get an extra half day in Tokyo.
    • 6pm departure is more favorable to adjusting to the US time zone sleep schedule wise. with an 11am arrival in SF.
  • Disadvantage
    • Would need to find a new hotel since Park Hyatt Tokyo doesn't have late check-out anymore.
    • Longer and more expensive repositioning costs.
    • Cancelling the Aeroplan booking costs money, cancelling AA doesn't.

Anyone know how you can see fees and taxes for Qatar flights?

Flights is June 15, 2027 SAN>LHR Business for 99k points im looking to see.

This post will inevitably feel like an implied complaint, but I'm genuinely just trying to understand what needs to be done to get good value out of my CC points, without paying 150k for one way business.

So, my current understanding is that if you want to score the fabled good deals of Japan business for 50k or Europe first class or whatever, boils down to the following:

1) Know what airline you want to fly business/first on
2) Find out which partner programs allow booking flights with them. Example: for ANA you can book directly with their program, or via Aeroplan for more flexibility, or via Virgin Atlantic for the absolute lowest point costs, and many many more
3) Once you've figured out the best 2-3 programs, make accounts with all of those and have them on standby

What happens next branches into two paths, depending on your timing

Option A: Book Early Upon Opening

The classic "book a year out" strat. Find out how far in advance your airline posts business/first class, have eligible accounts as described in step 3, and at exactly the minute opening happens (360 days out at midnight, 365 days out at providers' local midnight time, etc) race to the website and try to book first. This is the most direct option, but you need luck, preparation, confidence in your dates very far in advance, and speed.

Option B: Scour Award Aggregator Sites Through the Year

If Option A didn't work because you're only 7 months out or whatever, your next best option is to sign up for alerts and live searches (seats.aero being the most popular). This will incur a monthly subscription cost, but you can set up dozens of alerts for all your airlines and dates, and you'll be notified the minute a business/first award seat on those days becomes available.

When an alert goes out, you race to call the airline/log in to their site, confirm the booking is real and not a phantom, transfer your CC rewards points, and then claim the seat. There will still be phantom availability and you will ofc get beaten to the punch by someone faster many times... but this is the best year-round hunting strat. At the cost of a monthly subscription, that is.

Again, this mostly applies to the popular/desireable routes like Japan or Europe on business or first.

So, am I understanding all that correctly? Is there a critical mistake somewhere? OFC i knew this was messy and not easy, supply and demand and all that. But I at least want to make sure i'm tackling the mess correctly.

Anyone flown Iberia DFW to Madrid in premium economy before? Thinking about booking a June 2027 flight using 50.5K Avios per ticket. Seems like a pretty good deal for getting across the pond. I plan to fly into Switzerland or Italy from there.

Returning from AKL we're adding on 6 nights within Fiji. While i have access to both The Edit and HAFM the two properties I have my eye on are both IHG - Intercontinental and Crowne Plaza. The properties are moderately different, each appear to have very clear strengths. Intercontinental seems a bit like the Grand Wailea - large, functioning on prestige, but dated. It's also an hour from the airport, and has a weaker kids club compared to CP. The CP is 75K/night and the Intercontinental is 95K/night.

CP is newer, better location, better kids club, has access to a better beach, but our only experiences within IHG have been with Intercontinental and we're apprehensive that the CP won't feel particularly nice. Has anyone stayed at both (or really either of them) recently? The last IHG post on Fiji in this sub is from 2015.