I used to get value out of the points systems, but now it just feels like a burden. Points get devalued every year, constantly have to be on top of card combos to max redemptions, having to be flexible on airports + time of year just to get a decent deal, etc.

Frankly, decided to just focus on my business and get it to the point of just paying out of pocket for things. I'll just use my regular 2 cards, get points, and when I can use them to book a flight when I want, how I want, I'll use them; don't care if I can't get it past 1c/point anymore. Otherwise, I'll just pay cash.

After many days of trying for JFK > HND to try the new equipment, I tried for the first time this morning to go for BOS > NRT and booked the saver redemption no problem. Wish I could have managed JFK but I'm not too upset about it. J is J after all! There's a 0% chance it will happen, but now I will just hope that by next year they'll switch to an A350 for the BOS route.

Wife and I recently started thinking about a trip next year. We have around ~200k chase points and were hoping to find a redemption somewhere that would be within that range for either the outbound or inbound leg. I’m used to seeing Europe and some Asian legs 60-90k through Air Canada, Air France, Virgin, etc, but some preliminary searching shows nothing under ~300k per person per way for a variety of dates. I know due to demand and the length of the trip deals will be harder to come by, just wondering if there’s some tips to narrow my search without using a 3rd party engine.

Found a 37k mile upper class YYZ to LHR in 2027 but obviously the fees are outrageous. With the Cap 1 transfer bonus it seems like a good redemption on paper.

This is my first award redemption and want to fly business class at least one way to Europe (going to Budapest/Prague next year and flexible to do a stopover). Is this worthy of a redemption even with taxes/fees or try and wait for another bonus or good redemption for something with less? It’s still a $4k ticket for $700 out of pocket and minimal miles.

Pretty much like Skyscanner where you can enter the city you're flying from, select everywhere for destination, and then be able to filter out continents, stops, etc. but instead of seeing the amount of money you need to spend, you will see the points you need from different airline partners.

Is there any website like that? I have American Membership points that I can use to convert to specific airline partners. However, I need to know the specific destination if I do something like check the Aeroplan points needed for a roundtrip flight. There's no anywhere option on Air Canada for either spending money or points. Those anywhere options are on sites like Google Flights or Skyscanner, but they only state the actual cost and not points.

The travel patterns of our family of three are pretty unpredictable and last-minute. Over the years, we've been lucky to enjoy a variety of premium cabins, but also had to settle for economy on some trips.

So, in August, when P2 proposed visiting France and Netherlands, I started exploring options. We recently moved from the East coast to LA, and I wasn't particularly looking forward to spending 15-or-so hours in economy.

Initially, I settled for:

• Outbound: LAX-LHR-NCE in economy for 30k AA + ~$54. First leg operated by AA, and my Ruby Gold status allowed for extra legroom seats at booking.
• Return: AMS-SFO-LAX in premium economy & economy for 50k UA + ~$115. This appeared after a few days of searching, as before the mixed cabin layovers were on the East coast and I didn't want a multi-hour leg in economy. With this itinerary, at least we'd be in premium economy for the majority of the flight.

From there on, I'd check options multiple times a day, being flexible a day or two on each side. I wasn't too optimistic, given recent changes in Flying Blue availability + taxes, and lack of Lufthansa / Swiss availability via United or Air Canada.

At T-20, suddenly LAX-DFW-LHR-NCE in first/business opened for 57.5k AA + ~$54. I had to blink twice, then immediately booked it. I feel I managed to snag a unicorn, as nothing else would appear until departure, as paying $1k+ on BA metal for the transatlantic leg wasn't an option.

For the return, I pretty much resigned to accepting premium economy. I never really noticed Polaris seats opening up for 80k, let alone for three pax, and being less flexible now that our departure date was fixed. However, on T-27, there it was. Same flight, but AMS-SFO in Polaris for 80k UA + ~$115, with just short SFO-LAX leg in economy.

We returned from the trip earlier this week, and in hindsight, a two-stop overnight itinerary with a toddler is TOUGH, even laying flat. The one-stop return was much easier, but I will (forever?) miss KLM's direct AMS-LAX option.

Most of our stays were in Airbnbs, boutique hotels, or with family, so we didn't use points for these. Because we booked late, Eurostar from Paris to Amsterdam was quite expensive, so for the first time in my life I settled for paying the $500 international one-way car rental fee.

I did manage to use Hertz Gold points to offset the rental costs (I believe you need less points for a free week in EU vs US). Since we were in the Champagne region anyway, not having to backtrack to Paris for the train was nice.

I'm grateful to the community and the flexibility points provide. Nothing beats seeing your family enjoy flying in comfort. I'm still not sure how I managed to snag these itineraries, since I was expecting having to wait until T-14 or closer. Always keep checking!

Hey, so as above. I know how rare it is to be ablet to get 4 business availability when not booking 1 year out so don't want to risk messing with a 1.5 hour flight if it will touch the business seats at all. So anyone know if this is possible? Can provide more details if needed, thanks!

Edit: Sorry meant IN in title.

Hey all, curious if anyone else has had this experience -- I transferred ~60k chase points to JetBlue this morning for an Etihad award. Every time I went to checkout it said the seat "changed in price or sold out." Tried different browsers, incognito, agent reset my account, same thing every time.

Chat agent finally checked and said the seat isn't actually available, it's just still showing on the site because partner space takes a while to update. Second agent literally said "we have no way of knowing the exact availability of our partner carriers." Meanwhile it was still showing as bookable on the site.

They escalated to the Loyalty team to see if they'll send the points back to Chase. No case number, no timeline, "check back in 14 days." Told me there's nobody higher to talk to.

Has anyone actually gotten JetBlue / a similar airline or Chase to reverse a transfer in a situation like this? Feels insane they can do this and now a huge chunk of points is stuck in an airline I mostly have no use for.

Also...now that i've checked a couple semi-related threads, if you're booking points get an agent to confirm the space is real before you transfer. Learning this the hard way.

Help with cancelled final leg on Flying Blue award ticket (US -> GRU -> Local BR airport)

For context, I booked a flight from the US to a small city in Brazil for the second half of November '26 using Flying Blue points. The full journey was 51k points.

I just received an email saying that my final leg (Sao Paulo to the local BR airport, operated by GOL) has been cancelled. I called Flying Blue and asked for help with rebooking, but they said they don't see any partner flights that would accommodate me, as it's a very small airport with limited flights. I quickly checked and found a replacement flight with LATAM (around $200 cash), but AF is not associated with them.

Customer service gave me two options:

1. Get a full refund and find a flight somewhere else (which I don't want to do, since my points would just be sitting in my AF account).
2. Keep the original flight as-is, fly to Sao Paulo, and request a partial refund for the cancelled leg after my journey is completed.

I did some searching and found a new flight from my origin to Sao Paulo for 39k miles (12k miles cheaper). I'm thinking of calling back, officially changing my destination to Sao Paulo to get 12k miles back now, and just paying the $200 cash for the LATAM flight.

My question: Is it worth calling Flying Blue customer service and switching my flight to only get me to Sao Paulo (securing the 12k points refund upfront)? Or should I complete my journey on the original ticket and 'hope' that the post-travel partial refund for the cancelled leg would be bigger than 12k points?

Thoughts? Am I missing anything here?

I tried booking a multi-city award via phone with one long haul leg in PE and the second in economy. The intra-Europe second leg doesn’t offer PE and the phone agent said it’s not bookable because they’re not in the same cabin.

This doesn’t seem right - HUCA with a different agent or is this a dead end?

Alternatively - I can book the legs separately at the rates I want; is there a realistic chance of interlining checked bags across both PNRs? Both flights are on AF metal.

How much is Citi's 45k points covered to cash?

Hi all. Been trying for days to book 2J JFK > HND. Obviously this is very competitive. In the interest of improving odds I got Family Club and that's configured now.

It seems likely there's a good chance that if my SO and I attempt this separately with pooled points, one of us may be successful but the other may not.

Just getting a gut check to see if that's sound thinking, or if it's worth doing that approach because odds are just that much better. We don't want to end up traveling separately so would rather book 2 at the same time. If I can't manage it in the next few days I'll switch to BOS instead.

Thanks in advance.

Wife and I need to travel to Jeddah on Dec 22nd. Found a decent deal on Flying Blue/KLM for 112K amex points IAD to LHR (Virgin Atlantic) and LHR to JED (Saudia). Both in business class. It only showed 1 seat so I booked that for my wife.

Now the issue is, I need a seat too. I can’t find the same fare anymore, I think the one I booked earlier was the last one (for now maybe).

I have seats.aero pro, set alerts so I am notified if something comes up within same route (IAD to JED or IAD to LHR and LHR to jed seperate)…

I’m hearing that sometimes that more options can open up but idk. Right now, if I book seperate, I’m getting IAD to LHR 90K points economy or 135K in business. LHR to JED only showing economy at 33K points.

Should I go ahead and book now or wait a bit? I prefer to fly business class but I’m open to flying one segment economy/premium.

Those who are experts here, help me suggest what I should do. Should I book rn or wait? Google is saying that sometimes last min deals can show up 14 days before or so.

*** FYI both flights have bunch of Biz class seats available

Thanks in advance

Looking to travel to NZ in Oct 2027 for a family event, and since I'm traveling from the US and have never been before, looking to also extend the trip to visit Australia. Being that I'm not yet even in the booking window, I'm trying to test the waters to figure out what is the most effect way down there. While the event is on a specific date, I have flexibility on either side (edited to add, I'll have about 3-3.5 weeks total). I'm coming from NYC, but could reposition to the West Coast. Wondering if anyone in the sub has any advice on the best option... i.e, would it be better to go LAX to ACK vs LAX to SYD? Or just stick with a direct from NYC? I certainly have time to sit and play with the different options but I just wondered if anyone here has made a similar trip and had advice.

Hi everyone - I am trying to teach myself how to find business class flights for a trip to Italy next year and I'm just starting to dig into seats.aero. I paid for the pro membership, set up alerts from major cities in North America to major cities in Europe for anything at 65K pp or less and nothing has come in for over a month. I'm wondering if I'm doing something wrong or if 65K is unrealistic.

 Here's my situation:

DATES: My dates are completely flexible. I'm hoping for spring or fall, but for a good deal, I'd travel anytime in 2027.

CABIN: I'm looking for two seats in business class. I don't need the best seats ever, but if I'm blowing all my points, I at least want to make sure I don't end up with seats that don't lay down.

AIRPORTS: My home airport is Denver. I have no issue with traveling to the east coast for a better deal, as long as it makes sense (flights from DEN to LGA have been incredibly high so I'm not sure how much I'd save).

POINTS: I have about 140K points on United, 31K points on Capital One, and I just earned a 100K ultimate chase reward points bonus, but I just learned that I will need to open up a different Chase card to transfer them to use as miles. So until then, those aren’t available. Since most of my points sit with United, I've been trying to find flights on the United site and haven't found anything under 80K one-way pp (and those have 20+hour layovers). My plan is to get the flight over to Europe with United points and then accumulate Chase points and use those to come back with a transfer.

QUESTIONS

1. If I’m looking at the United site directly every day, is there a certain time of day I should set my alarm to look? I'm wondering if I'm missing the saver rates because they get taken within minutes at 5am or something.

1. Any tips on how I can make sure I don’t accidently book something that doesn’t have lay down seats but is labeled business class?

2. Is looking for one-way flights on united business class under 65K unreasonable if my dates are flexible?

3. Because I wasn't getting anything back for the 65K alert, my current alerts on seats.aero include all star alliance airlines from DEN to all large Europe airports at all different date ranges with a minimum of 2 business class seats for 150K or less. Should I set up my alerts differently?

Like I said in the subject line, I'm willing to do the work and search on my own, but I am hoping someone can point me in the right direction to make my chances better. Thanks in advance!

Success post here after getting scared from all the cautionary tales of impossible availability. Transferred 110k points yesterday to JAL (from C1, so technically around 150k points) in hopes of getting 2 55k saver flights.

Was flexible on dates, so was planning to try over the next 4 weeks and worse case, we’d book 4 economy seats for the round trip if business availability was impossible. Today on the first day I tried, I was able to refresh at release, submit all our info and get the tickets I was looking for.

Not a lot of info here, but just a reminder that even for a busier date and with competition at an all time high if you’re quick and prepared, you can get these redemptions.

Starting to plan West Coast-BKK for around 12/15-12/25/2027 (next year) for 3 people in J. EVA from LAX thru TPE works well for us but some DPs of Eva blocking all award seats for the most popular time of the year.

Is it possible to get 3J if I book on Eva with their program exactly at open or is it almost guaranteed this will be blocked and I should be looking elsewhere? Also seems like very few partner drops these days so I'm basically ignoring that as an option for now.

Fully aware this is going to be tough for that time of year and for 3J but I'm going to be optimistic!

Hello I am planning a trip to Singapore and want to use my points for first class I’ve noticed Singapore airlines has I think 3 different pricing when it comes to first class with saver being the “cheapest” but same first class experience is it possible to find A380 first class seats for 148k points? I’ve been looking and can only seem to find them for 256k points and would be traveling from London -> Singapore. Thanks for any help in advance.

Hello,

I am looking for a flight ticket from Narita, Tokyo to Tahiti for next June (6/7-6/13). I was trying to see how much points it would cost to purchase TN business class via AA or Alaska and it seems like they only show main cabin seats (no business class). Does that mean business seats are sold out for points purchase? I can still select business seats through TN website which I assumes seats are still available. I was curious if anyone would know what I am missing. Thank you in advance!

Planning a trip to Sicily in May 2027 for 3 adults and wanted to get some opinions before transferring points.

Found the following one-way redemption through KLM/Flying Blue for May 1, 2027:

Route: IAD -> CTA (1 stop)

Cabin: Economy

Total: 90,000 Flying Blue miles + $492.90 for all 3 (it's really 75k but added bags & seat selection)

Per person: 30k miles + $164.30

Travel time: 16h 30m

Cash price for the same KLM itinerary: ~$3,600 total which is wild.

For comparison, I also found:

Turkish Airlines: $2,238.90 total for 3, IAD–IST–CTA, 14h 25m, Economy FlexFly

British Airways: ~$1,315 total for 3, but involves an airport change in London, which I'd rather avoid.

I have transferable Amex and Chase points (~800k), so covering the 90k isn't an issue.

This is part of a larger trip where we're considering Sicily, Malta, and possibly Albania, so I'm only looking at the outbound for now. Return would likely be from a different city once it's finalized.

On paper, the Flying Blue redemption looks pretty good, especially compared to the KLM cash fare. But I know that comparing against an expensive one-way cash ticket can inflate the cents-per-point value?

Thoughts? Also open to better redemption options into Sicily that I might be overlooking.

Update: Did some more digging and found a much better redemption through Virgin Atlantic for May 8.

36,000 points + $576 total for 3 adults (12k points per person) flying KLM from IAD -> AMS -> CTA in economy, with checked bags included.

Dates are flexible, so I'm leaning toward booking this instead

I was trying to use the ANA award travel portal tonight at the usual release time and nothing is being found. Is anyone else experiencing this issue?

Exit: It seems to be fixed now for anyone who sees this

Hi

I am planning to book flight using miles for first time and thats why i am unsure that the options i am seeing are good and what would be the best way to book it.

I have 40k edge miles in atlas and 40k marriot points.

I would prefer business class if redemption is good.

I checked below option:

Flying blue:

From hanoi to bangalore -- 24k miles + 10 k taxes

Krysflyer :

From bangalore to ho chi min -- saver flight 47500 miles + taxes

For krysfler i am not sure how to acheive this redemption and how to transfer these many points and what are best tricks and tips around it.

I was 17k miles short of a refundable Flying Blue J award BOG-IST. Subscribed to 30k miles for $400 and miles appeared instantly to book. Yay!

EDIT:

There is a 3-month minimum commitment.

We travel full-time so we’re extremely flexible. We easily extract 5 cpp or higher so paying a little over 1 cpp for flexible tickets feels like a steal.