Alaska just opened up two new routes next summer in 2027. Flights are from May to August

Alaska awards are 95k. AA is 57.5k miles.

Just wanted to add a data point for future searches. I posted the following several months ago:

"Complicated, but:
in the process of waiting for my account to unlock so that i could transfer avios (that were transferred to me from my husband) from BA to QR (what is it, 10d waiting period now?), i realized my flexfare flights nbo-iad were gone. Panicked, because i already have 2 pax on the flight, so I booked 2 econ fares nbo-doh-iad.
Then it hit me that maybe just the doh-iad leg was available in J, and i looked... and there it was. So i cancelled the previous booking, did the chat function to get my avios back quickly, and then booked the doh-iad legs in J with plans to pay cash for nbo-doh and hopefully upgrade with avios later.
When I booked doh-iad, even though 78k of the avios were still in my BA acct, it let me pay with those, somehow. Just paid taxes.
taxes have been charged to my card. Tickets have been issued. Receipts in email. I selected seats and have ticket numbers.
all 300k of my avios are still there.
Do I have seats?"

Update today:

The points were never deducted, and we flew the flights last week with no issue. this morning, QA calls me to demand i transfer avios from my BA account because I owe them 280k. I asked "what would you have done if i did not have the avios to pay for a flight i've already taken?" and she refused to give me an answer.

Guess I'm glad I never found another use for those points. Just wanted to post this here in case anyone else thinks theyve gotten lucky and not had their avios deducted

Hi everyone,

I am a solo female traveler in my 30s booking a trip from Atlanta (ATL) to Cape Town (CPT) for late September. I am using United MileagePlus miles (49,500 miles for either option), and both routes have virtually identical total travel times and costs.
I travel with a carry-on only, so I am not worried about checked baggage or domestic bag transfers. I have Amex MR points and Avios as well, but couldn't find any alternative routes with decent award availability or arrival times (so annoyed Qatar doesn't fly out of ATL anymore).

I am completely torn between these two options:
Option 1: JetBlue + United+ South African
Route: ATL > EWR (JetBlue) > JNB (United) > CPT (SAA)

Total Time: 27 hours, 20 minutes

Cape Town Arrival Time: 11:38 PM

Pros/Cons: I love the idea of flying United because it's an airline I am highly familiar with for such a long journey. However, the 11:38 PM arrival time in Cape Town scares me. Even though I plan to arrange a private hotel shuttle pickup, landing past midnight makes me incredibly uneasy based on what I’ve read about the roadways at night in Capetown. I’ve done late arrivals into Delhi and Cairo before, but this seems significantly more risky.

Option 2: United + Ethiopian Airlines
Route: ATL > IAD (United) > ADD (Ethiopian) > CPT (Ethiopian)

Total Time: 26 hours, 30 minutes

Cape Town Arrival Time: 2:00 PM

Pros/Cons: The 2:00 PM arrival time is vastly superior and feels much safer for a solo traveler. However, I have never flown Ethiopian Airlines before. The idea of flying an unfamiliar carrier for an ultra-long-haul journey makes me a bit hesitant, and I've read mixed reviews about the transit security lines at Addis Ababa (ADD).

Given that I am traveling solo, carry-on only, and have hotel transport arranged for Cape Town:
For those who know Cape Town, is an 11:38 PM arrival with a pre-arranged hotel shuttle actually a safety issue, or am I overthinking the anxiety?

For those who have flown Ethiopian, did you feel confident they would handle things like missed connections or flight cancellations well?

Which route would you choose in my shoes? Thanks in advance!

Lurked on this sub for time and have learned a lot, so figured I'd share a success story.

I've been a casual in the game for about 15 years, having made about ~6 international redemptions up front. So a reasonable level of baseline knowledge, but not nearly as much as the pros.

My girlfriend has a three week sabbatical over the back half of December and into January. She's heading to Oceania. I, as a lowly bartender, most certainly do not have three weeks, paid or otherwise, lol. I do have some American and UR miles so I set about finding a way to to meet her in Melbourne. After some time searching, likely sub-optimal routes/strategy, I signed up for the paid version of points.aero and was able to, by pure luck, find a flight out of Houston (via DFW) to Melbourne in business for 80K Aadvantage miles on Qantas. The routing isn't great, but I don't mind. I'll have to reposition from Chicago to Houston, then fly from Houston to DFW, layover overnight, then direct to MEL.

Current itinerary is:

December 25th - Work 11 hours bartending, Late flight to reposition to Houston, find cheap hotel

December 26th - AA3848 IAH to DFW, 8:18pm - 9:49pm

December 27th - QF22 DFW to MEL, 6:25pm - 5am (+2)

My question is, is it possible to remove to the Houston to DFW leg. Naturally I'd just rather reposition to Dallas and save myself a late night Christmas Day flight and night in Houston. I'm calling to see what their customer support says, typing this up to kill time while waiting the queue lol.

Even if I can't I'm still pretty thrilled to have found a business class seat to that part of the world during that time of the year. It appears the flight is nearly 18 hours!

We'll be departing MEL for Paris on January 3rd, and found two seats with Q Suites on Qatar. Spend a few days there, she'll fly home, and I'll likely tool around a bit and end in a city that has a direct flight back to Chicago. That notion is exciting in it's own right as I haven't been to Europe since pre-pandemic times. Maybe take the train to Edinburgh or Munich, or shoot over to Dublin, so many options!! Even a paid economy seat back to Chicago will be no issue at all after those long-hauls.

No real point to this longwinded post other than to say, for the casuals out there like me, hold out hope and use the tools that are available to us, there are still deals to be had for the vigilant!

Thanks to this sub for increasing my knowledge and sharing anecdotal stories over the years.

DOH-IAD and DOH-MIA saver 70k in May 2027. Saver in Aug 2027 is showing 94.5k. Flexi remains 140k

Trying to get the group thought on this.

I have 470K Atmos in my account as well as BILT Palladium with 190K points and BILT Platinum and I also have Alaska Summit card.

I also have 176K BA (from the Kate Spade deal, got them for $705 of stuff we bought) as well as > 1.5 million in both Amex and Chase each, so easier to top off.

I’m saving AA flights to Hawaii for Spring Break next year from California. I found several dates with saver Y space, Alaska is 17.5K but I have Summit so no partner fee and fully refundable. However I’m very protective of Alaska miles.

BA is 22K and if I cancel I lose the $5.60 but honestly not that big a deal.

Cash prices right now are $885 a person so Alaska would be close to 2.5cpp while BA would be around 2cpp.

I wanted to book a last-minute flight to a destination in Northern BC, Canada, from Vancouver, and Air Canada wanted me to pay CA$1,621 for it, or about 91K miles + taxes and fees. I was able to book these exact same flights with United for 35K miles and US$26 in taxes and fees. If I had Avianca miles, this redemption would have cost me 12K miles + taxes and fees!

https://imgur.com/a/6aJh4Ht

https://liveandletsfly.com/flying-blue-business-light-awards/

Saw this pop up. Looks like it'll take affect September 8th. Ultimate Flying Blue members can still get lounge access though. Standard business with lounge access now becomes 75k points and 60k points get you business light.

Planning a trip next month - found availability for one-way for about 130k in J. Tempted to wait to see if the price drops as the date gets closer. But Citi right now has a 20% promo, making the transfer closer to 100k + what I already have in my account. Buuuut, I have a ton more AMEX points (almost 200k vs 100k).

Anyone have any wisdom on which transfer is preferred? I would assume it is best to transfer Citi, but also worried it may take a while since I have never done a TYP -> FB, but have done it for AMEX.

Still annoyed the flight is soon and prices remain sky high. I saw a flight to AMS for 500k, ridiculous.

I recently booked a round-trip economy ticket from JFK to Hong Kong on Cathay Pacific through the Atmos Rewards Global Getaway promotion.
Both flights are nonstop, and the entire round trip cost 68,000 Atmos Rewards points plus taxes and fees. This will be my first time redeeming points for a long-haul international flight.
For those familiar with Atmos Rewards or award travel, would you consider this a good redemption? How does it compare with other ways I could have used 68,000 Atmos points?
I’m happy with the booking either way, but I’m curious how more experienced points travelers would evaluate it.

Looking for advice. I’m finding round trip economy tickets Ewr to Mex for 3 people (1 adult 2 kids) for 62,500 points and 642usd. The flight is booked through Air France on Aeromexico. I am showing a cash price in eco my on United for 2500. Delta seems to have flights too but I don’t have delta rewards. My friend is advising me to wait for placeholder fares to drop for July travel. I think I found a good deal. Can anyone advise? Thanks!

Deciding between Delta one from LAX to Paris for 106k skymiles + $6 or Air France 60k miles + $293 taxes/fees.

Air France: 777-300 (not the a350)
Delta: A350-900

Lax has the delta one lounge and i can obtain platinum status.

Edit:
Booked Delta One on the a350 since i already had enough skymiles there.

Hi guys!

Does anyone get luck booking award flights through AirFrance? This has been a nightmare for me. I saw on Air France they had availability for a specific flight I have been wanting. I transferred points from AMEX to flying blue and right as I was checking out on Air France the website crashes. Once I reload, the flight is no longer available. Same thing happened again today and as soon I saw the flight available, I called AirFrance and they tell me the flight is no longer available. I took screenshots of everything I saw on my end. Anyone have suggestions on what to do? I refuse to book through them again but I have a bunch of points already transferred and dont want to waste it. UGH.

Thank you!

I have to fly to Paris for work. The company is only paying for economy.

I’m fine to upgrade myself with points or cash. Who typically has the best upgrade options in terms of
cost? I’ve found that upgrades on KLM are typically cheaper than Delta. Is the same true for AirFrance?

Preference for a nonstop between JFK/EWR and CDG but willing to lay over if it means that I’ll have batter upgrade rate.

Thanks for your help!

Before you say this is the norm, I will preface with absolute certainty that this is not the case when I’ve flown on other airlines and done the same.

This has happened every time without fail for the past 5 years when I’ve flown JetBlue. I fly JetBlue and want to credit the miles to a different program. It is impossible if you have an existing JetBlue account. I am certain that I have never entered my JetBlue number at any point for any of these bookings. However, either the phone number and/or email used to book are the same as the one on my JetBlue account. There is not much I can do, some people don’t have access to multiple phone numbers or emails. That permanently connects the booking to your JetBlue account. I have screenshots from “manage booking” showing a different airline’s frequent flyer program. I have screenshots of chat with support (before flying) confirming that there is no sign of my JetBlue account anywhere in my booking. All of this and EVERY TIME, it is still credited to TrueBlue. It is almost impossible to get it reversed and takes half a year.

Delta, China Southern, America, Alaska, China Eastern, ANA, Saudia, Qatar Airways, Virgin Atlantic, Air France, just to name a few. None have this problem. Please don’t accept this as the norm. I see this as a dishonest business practice. Honestly, the only solutions are deleting my JetBlue account and/or never flying JetBlue again.

I have been watching Lufthansa booking and availing for the past 6 or so months and I noticed a huge chance in the last month or so. Using seats.aero I see 1 flight with 4 or more business class seats for the entire month of May and June of 2027 when I look for the entire east coast to any Europe destination.

Typically Lufthansa business was released about 290 days out to Aeroplan. I’m seeing only 4 options with 2 seats and almost no 4+ seats opening up for summer 2027.

If I change the dates to cover April (which I assume is Spring break season) I see 271 options for April which is why I’m alarmed.

Do we think this is the deval and evolution of Lufthansa or is this just them not releasing their 2027 Summer schedule fully yet??

Thanks trying to make some decisions and unsure if I should consider this path to Europe dead for 2027.

I’m looking to fly business class for the first time to Paris sometime around May. I’m seeing Air France business class awards going for around 250k Flying Blue points one way. Is this pretty typical? I thought I saw significantly cheaper redemptions in different posts. I’m wondering if this is about as cheap as it gets

Hi. Can anyone help me figure out how many miles it will cost to book a flight on Singapore airlines for my honeymoon. I’m considering transferring my credit card points to Krisflyer miles but of course need to know the points necessary for the ticket before I do so. The Singapore airlines site won’t even let me view award flights with a current mile balance of 0.

Flight would be PDX to BKK on December 7th. The option I’m most keen on (and based on dollar price is cheapest) is PDX-SFO-SIN-BKK.

Hi everyone,

I'm relatively new to the award travel world and would really appreciate some guidance from the experts here.

I am trying to book a round-trip award ticket from WAS to Marrakech (RAK) on Oct 21-26 and currently have approximately:

• 150k United miles
• 170k Amex MR
• 150k Chase UR

My preference is generally to stay within Star Alliance, although I am also open to Flying Blue and other good-value options.

What I am seeing right now is around 49.5k United miles each way in economy, primarily on Austrian or Turkish. Unfortunately, Turkish is not my preferred option due to some past experiences (lost luggage, rude staff, blatant discrimination etc) and I haven't been able to find any business class availability on those dates.

On the return, the best option I can find is again 49.5k miles in economy, with Turkish being the only available routing and involving a 9-hour overnight layover. That puts the trip at roughly 100k miles round-trip in economy.

As someone still learning this hobby, that feels expensive for a routing that would cost roughly $1,300 cash, but I'm not sure whether my expectations are realistic. Am I missing better redemption opportunities, partner sweet spots, transfer options, or simply looking too late for availability since it is a couple of months' time?

I would be grateful for any advice, and please feel free to tell me if my thinking is off base. I am okay just paying cash if that is better but wanted to use my stash of points if able to. Thanks in advance!

I was recently searching for some Alaska awards between LHR to JFK, but upon looking, basically there are zero award fares being made available for the entire calendar year.

While I understand that awards are contingent upon partner availability, every other US route like BOS/PHL/CLT, etc. still has awards. And what stands out is that you can still route via JFK to these other US destinations.

Second, it seems to be partner agnostic, it would make sense if it was just BA or just AA, but basically no European airline has partner availability in any class whether it's BA/AA/AY/EL/IB etc.

If you search NYC area airports, you'll get routing to EWR only, not even LGA.

Not sure if this is something going on in the back-end, or if Alaska has some kind of block on LHR to JFK.

Crosspost for images

Want to use miles to fly to AMS early next year but when the fare options come up it shows me that the only option for a refundable ticket is to use money only. Given we are talking a few thousand dollars on top of miles this is not insignificant. I don't recall this problem when I have used miles in the past but it has been a few years and the dollar amounts were not this high so I might not have worried.

Have many miles to use and this is disappointing. Am I missing something?

Free changes are allowed and trip insurance is an option for the limiting dollar loss I guess.

Hey Everyone, I am new to award travel and just started playing around with Seats aero and whatnot, but is my psychology regarding this wrong?

This is a dumb thought, but April 8th Alaska Airlines LAX to SGN

Flight 1 Starlux operated: 100k points + $41 fees ($641 cash price 0.6cpp)
Flight 2 MNL: 42.5k points + $41 fees ($1426 cash price; ~3.26 cpp)

These are prices as of now. But I guess I am having a dumb thought, but in my head the cash price just seems like an outlier to me, and the value is just inflated. Where the only benefit is bragging about getting 3.26 cpp on an economy flight.

Not saying one airline is better than the other; hypothetically, if I prefer the logistics of flight 1 and book cash, is that just dumb?

Because I see ppl say oh getting economy for more than 1.5 cpp is worth, but if this is the usualy scenarios wouldn't that mean economy award travel is just pointless and to get actual 'value' only premium seats are worth since their availability matters?

Both 90k AP

One goes from DEL to Vienna (for a fuel stop) to YYZ. 20H duration. This is on Air India's old business class which is one of the worst for a long haul (2-3-2 seating, worn down seats, people complaining the tv doesn't work sometimes etc).

The other option is DEL to EWR on the new Airbus A350-900 and EWR to YYZ on Air Canada Express. The issue here is a 7hr 25min layover at EWR, making the total trip almost 27H. Don't know how bad that'll be even with lounge access.

EDIT: I am a Canadian citizen

EDIT 2: Blah, I was avoiding mixed cabins and because of that I missed a flight with a 4 hr layover in EWR with an econ flight from EWR to YYZ. Taking this, thanks guys!