6 strategies for discovering affordable award flights

What’s the price of an award ticket to Hawaii?

Curiously, both 7,500 miles and over 200,000 miles for a one-way ticket are correct answers.

Despite the current trend of fluctuating airline award pricing and reduced reliance on traditional award charts, it's still feasible to secure inexpensive award flights.

Here are our strategies for maximizing your miles by seeking out excellent award flight deals.

Understand your award charts

Indeed, award charts may be fading away, but they still exist, particularly in international programs or when flying with global partners.

You don’t need to master every award chart, but focus on learning two key aspects:

First, get to know the sweet spots in award charts, which means identifying the affordable awards that may catch your interest. TPG has various articles to help you pinpoint the sweet spots that are relevant to you.

• Top 6 award chart sweet spots
• Fly round-trip to Europe in business class for just 88,000 miles
• Round-trip to Hawaii for 15,000 miles
• Domestic award chart sweet spots
• Optimal uses for Chase Ultimate Rewards
• Sweet spots with Delta SkyMiles
• Maximizing miles with Alaska Airlines
• American AAdvantage sweet spots
• Lie-flat business class for 12,000 points

You can't determine a good award deal without knowing what the typical rates are, so choose a program, points currency, or destination and familiarize yourself with the options available.

Next, do some calculations.

It’s difficult to gauge a good deal if you're unsure what each point is worth or the various ways to utilize it.

By taking advantage of the current record-setting Chase Sapphire Preferred Card welcome bonus of 80,000 points (after spending $4,000 in the first 3 months), you'll have numerous options for redeeming those points for flights.

Like many other card programs, you can redeem points at a fixed value for flights. For instance, when booking through the Chase Travel site, you can get $1,250 in flights at a rate of 1.25 cents per point.

Once you have a basic understanding of award charts, you can explore whether your points can stretch further by using a transfer partner like British Airways. For instance, if a round-trip flight from Dallas to Aspen costs $400 on American Airlines, it would require 32,000 points from your Sapphire card at a rate of 1.25 cents per point.

However, if you find availability through the British Airways Avios program for flights operated by American Airlines, you can transfer your Chase points and book for as little as 9,000 points each way. This way, you can spend only 18,000 points for a round-trip instead of 32,000 points for the same flights, simply by choosing how to book.

Set up ExpertFlyer alerts

Understanding how to identify and utilize award chart sweet spots is quite different from actually applying that knowledge in practice.

You might know that booking United first-class awards to Hawaii only costs 12,500 Turkish Airlines miles, but discovering availability can be quite tough.

Of course, you can search manually until you’re as blue as the ocean, but why not let ExpertFlyer (owned by TPG's parent company, Red Ventures) handle that for you? ExpertFlyer offers various services, including notifying you when your desired awards become available.

For example, if you're looking for a first-class award from Los Angeles to Honolulu during the first two weeks of October, you can have ExpertFlyer search for it and alert you when it finds a lie-flat seat available.

Utilize an award map

American Airlines' award pricing can fluctuate significantly due to Economy Web Specials that lower flight costs to around 6,000 miles each way. The airline also provides an award map to help you locate the most affordable award flights to or from your desired destination.

In this instance, I chose February for travel dates with Dallas (DFW) as my departure point, discovering some of the most affordable U.S. destinations, including Bend, Oregon; Boston; Las Vegas; San Francisco; and Seattle—all bookable for just 10,000 American miles round-trip.

This tool is effective for international travel and various vacation types like 'beach' or 'ski.' You can also specify the number of miles you wish to spend, and it will locate available awards at that rate.

Take advantage of transfer bonuses

Looking for an affordable award and have flexible credit card points? Keep an eye out for transfer bonuses.

When your miles and points can stretch 20 to 50% further just by transferring them at the right time, it becomes much simpler to achieve excellent value and secure low-cost awards.

Recently, we’ve witnessed transfer bonuses like a 50% increase when transferring Amex Membership Rewards points to British Airways from cards such as the American Express® Gold Card or The Platinum Card® from American Express. This means 50,000 Amex points can be converted into 75,000 British Airways Avios points with just a few clicks.

While it's generally best to avoid transferring points on a whim, when circumstances align, bonuses can significantly benefit you if you want to fly a lie-flat seat for around 12,000 points.

We’ve also seen rare transfer bonuses from Chase Ultimate Rewards and occasionally from Citi ThankYou. TPG maintains an up-to-date list of transfer bonuses for your reference at any time.

Explore flexible date searches

With many popular airline award currencies being dynamic—where miles fluctuate just like cash fares—you'll uncover the most affordable award flights by examining a range of dates simultaneously.

If you're able to be flexible, adjusting your travel dates by just a day or two can lead to substantial savings in miles. For instance, the cost of award flights using Southwest Rapid Rewards to Cancun can soar from 8,000 to 40,000 points each way within a week.

Be prepared to move quickly

What I’ve shared so far only takes you partway to snagging fantastic award flight deals. The last 10 yards to the finish line might be the most crucial.

Your ultimate secret weapon for uncovering great flight award deals is to follow the right accounts and individuals on social media.

A few years back, there were 6,000 mile award flights to Australia and New Zealand. News of those deals spread like wildfire on social media, much faster than any article could be published. When it comes to exceptional award offers, timing is everything, so getting ahead of the news can help you secure the deal of a lifetime as it emerges.

Follow:

• @TPG_Alerts: Get alerts for various deals ... exclusively deal alerts, without other TPG tweets or stories. Consider enabling push notifications from Twitter for instant updates on your phone.
• Join the waitlist for the TPG app: The upcoming TPG app will simplify the process of maximizing your miles, so join the waitlist now to download it from the app store soon.
• TPG Facebook Lounge: TPG readers often share and discover deals here before they appear on the site.
• TPG Facebook page: Following the official TPG Facebook page increases your chances of finding deals—more is indeed better.
• @scottscheapflights: This focuses on paid fares, but since airline miles often correlate with ticket prices, it’s relevant for those using miles.
• @TheFlightDeal: Similar to the previous, this account emphasizes paid tickets, so follow if you enjoy seeking out airfare deals.
• Straight to the Points: Subscribe to award alert newsletters via text and email. They offer both free and paid versions of this service.
• Connect with fellow travel enthusiasts: When in-person events resume, attend frequent flyer gatherings, TPG meet-ups, and more to network with others who love finding deals. Some offers never reach major social media, so building real-life connections is valuable.

In summary

Even if you primarily keep an eye on deals by following the right social media accounts, a bit of luck and a quick response can lead you to some fantastic award flight bargains. Besides relying on chance to spot a deal, you can also uncover opportunities through knowledge, the right tools, and a relentless search effort.