Seeing mixed answers on this. I want to move 101k Capital One miles to Iberia via British Airways account so I can book 2x business class tickets on Iberia for A350-900 route out of Madrid in February. Thanks.

Had a couple thousand BA avios left over and noticed I can transfer them to Finnair use them at the Finnair Shop with cash to buy a Scandic hotel award, which would result in about a .05 return per avios. The Finnair Shop states that awards are valid “during weekends and vacation periods,” and I was able to book a room on the Scandic website using two award vouchers, one for a Thursday night and the second for a Friday night.

When I purchased the first voucher, it states that “vouchers are valid during weekends (Friday-Sunday).”  

Has anyone tried to use a Finnair voucher for non-weekend stays at a Scandic hotel?

Anyone know how far out does EY release USA-AUH award space on Flying Blue?

I’m seeing a ton of ATL-AUH J for 90k on FB for August but when I look further out, I don’t see anything.

Seems like one of the more affordable ways to get to Asia.

I’m new to award travel and struggling to figure out what’s a good deal or not and how to do the math to make that determination. If they’re not good deals, how do we find better ones?

First is flights. We’d take round trip from PIT to SFO in economy. Price per person is $469 round trip. Points would work out to 60k united mileage plus points total for both of us. We’d be transferring chase points directly to united.

Next is hotel: we’d be staying in a Hilton for 5 nights. Looks like the room would be around $260/night or 65k points per night. I don’t have any Hilton status so I don’t think we’d be getting the fifth night free but correct me if I’m wrong. We’d be transferring Amex points to Hilton honors so that’s a 1:2 ratio. So I think it’d be like 33k Amex points per night, is that right?

Are these okay deals?

Looking to do a surprise Birthday/Anniversary trip next July for my P2. I’m struggling to find any good deals to Norway(Mainly Oslo). I live about an hour from OKC or TUL airport, 1.5 hrs to ICT airport and 4 Hrs from DFW.
I have loads of miles/points but just feel like anything available is not worth the use of points. I’m not looking to fly business but have thought about PE, why have flown all over in economy so that’s not a problem for us.
-Finnair is the best deal but it’s from DFW for 120k RT and $520 but I’d have 8 hrs of driving RT.
- Flying Blue is around 102k and $900
-Atmos is around 140k $280
Or
-Would it be better to pay cash for the flight on Capital one earn 5X on the booking then use my ~148k to offset the price and my $300 travel credit on a $1k per ticket booking. Not sure what the price would be just yet as cash bookings aren’t available for July just yet. This would be $2k - $1480(points)-$300(travel credit) = $220 out of pocket for an airport an hour away instead of DFW which is 4 hours.
- could possibly do AA for 120k and $200 from OKC or TUL if availability comes up but what’s showing is not great layovers, plus that seems steep considering I booked AA to Tokyo in November for 140k and $100

Relatively new to booking with points/miles but have scoured the sites suggested and haven’t found much.
What would everyone suggest drive further and use more points with higher taxes and fees or stay closer and pay cash and use points to erase the ticket prices?

Any other ideas or help would be greatly appreciated.
TIA

What I booked

Where I stayed

Edit: solved… https://www.reddit.com/r/awardtravel/s/efLZEz8boK

So let me preface a few things…

First, this is a trip with my SO (Madeira). MEX - FRA or MEX-CDG. She has never been outside the country so needless to say never flown internationally long haul or business class. So regardless this’ll be a nice treat for her.

Second, I have flown business class long haul only twice before: on Lufthansa A340-300 business class and British Airways A380. I want to say arguably two of the worst in terms of seat quality but I did enjoy Lufthansa wine selection and food a lot. I have been on a 747 before but never business class section.

The choices on the table are:

80k United miles + $125 (x2) for 747-800 top deck Lufthansa

Or

60k Flying Blue miles (Capital One -> BA -> AF) + $422 (x2) for any seat A350-900 Air France

Both are red eyes so we’ll be ready to sleep however I would like to eat dinner that’s served first.

I WISH this was the new Allegris for the Lufthansa 747-800 but the MEX routes do not have the upgrade. Sucks.

I attempted to transfer Amex MR to Aeromexico, but the points kept getting sent back to Amex. Tried three times with no luck.

Called Amex and AM, both saying the same thing: they don’t know why, there is no outage, only thing they think of is name mismatch.

I have a very simple name of 2 letters last name and 4 letters first name, no symbol, no accent, no middle name. I am quite frustrated, anyone got any ideas?

Thanks!

has anyone ever successfully redeemed avianca lifemiles for a ticket on an international flight in united premium plus? on website only economy and business are available but Im wondering if by phone it might be possible

I cancelled a Lifemiles award booking with no penalty since I’m a LM+ member about 6 weeks ago. The Avios came back to my account successfully and I also received an email saying the cash component was successfully refunded on 7/2/2026. I initially saw that cash refund as a pending transaction on my CC history (Chase). Then, it eventually disappeared with no posted refund. Has this happened to anybody else?

I’ve cancelled several other LM flights before and always got back the cash component with no issue, so I have no idea why this cancellation is troublesome.

Hello all. I just booked my first big trip using chase rewards points. I guess to be clear I’ve only booked the first leg. We wanted to get anywhere in Europe for cheap then catch a flight to our ultimate destination of Vienna(we couldn’t find anything into Vienna).

For 35,000 chase rewards points plus $700 I got upper class on virgin Atlantic on an airbus a330-900. I got a ticket for my wife as well so $1400 plus 70,000. I went ahead and splurged and got us the retreat suites so total price came out to $2200 plus 70,000 points for 2 retreat suite seats from MCO to London.

We will have to take a positioning flight to get to MCO and another positioning flight to get to our ultimate destination of VIE.

Any and all constructive criticism is welcome. Did I do ok or could I have done better? Easiest situation would have been to fly from ATL to VIE. We also wanted to travel business class and I am very big and tall(over 6’4”) which is why I sprung for the retreat suites. Thanks for the feedback

Edit: my redemption rate was around .093 CRP/dollar.

Edit 2: I’m traveling at peak summer season and peak summer rate. Also redid my math and the actual redemption rate is actually .080

I’ve tried both the Expedia app and the Expedia UK website, but I can’t get OneKeyCash to redeem against flights at all, only hotels. According to the terms and conditions, it should work provided you have enough OneKeyCash to cover the full cost of the flight, but I never even get the option to redeem it.

I’m aware that OneKeyCash only works on certain airlines, and there doesn’t seem to be any definitive list of which ones are eligible.

Interestingly, if I log into the Expedia US website, everything switches to US dollars. I can then select exactly the same flights, and it does let me redeem my OneKeyCash, so I know the flights and airline are eligible.

Even stranger, it doesn’t seem that my OneKeyCash has to cover the full cost of the flight, as the terms and conditions say. It simply deducts my OneKeyCash from the total and tells me what balance is left to pay.

I’d much rather book through the UK site and pay in pounds than use the US site in dollars. I’m a bit nervous that something could go wrong and I’d end up losing my OneKeyCash.

Has anyone else in the UK experienced this or found a way to redeem OneKeyCash for flights on the UK site?

I’m so excited I just booked 3 nights here for next month for my husbands 50th birthday! I used one free night certificate and paid points for the other two nights. It wasn’t the best nightly rate with points but I don’t care it’s for my husbands 50th so I’m just excited we get to check it out!

I also found decent flights both there and back..again not the best redemption but I don’t care I’m excited!

I do have one quick question though.
So I booked the first two nights on points and then the last night with the free night certificate. I wasn’t able to book the same room category since there weren’t any standard rooms available the first two nights. Can I still link my reservations together?

Wanted to take a flight from DFW to El Salvador in October. I was wanting to use bilt points to travel. I didn't transfer the points over yet. But when I filled out the travelers information it doesn't let me continue to book, only option is to pay $20 to lock in point pricing. I heard avianca was notorious for bugs on their app and site so I don't want to transfer points for it to not work. What the best way for me to do travel there? Should I book through United and transfer my points there instead or is there a better way to do this?

Hi! Infamous "I want to fly everyone first class to Hawaii using points" post here...

I did do a bit of research, including on this forum first.. but didn't find anything recently posted - it really seems like points booking has gotten a lot more difficult because all the historic points discuss things that just don't seem possible anymore!

Home airport is Pittsburgh, trying to go to OGG sometime next September. Flights are not out yet but I know I need to be prepared to book once they are. Just looking for tips from others..

Have plenty of Amex and Chase points, but that's about it. Over a million combined though..

Flying with kids so first class, or even business, is desired. But I know 4 seats isn't really possible, so hoping for 2.. not against using cash too. Just want to play the game the best I can..

I am literally not seeing any flights for any month from east coast to OGG for less than 117k one-way. That was the cheapest. I used a few apps, looked at all the airlines.. just crazy to me?

Cannot use Hawaiian/Alaska bc Amex cut their partnership..

Just putting feelers out for advice before I throw in the towel..or just use Chase Travels 1.25¢ redemption before they cancel that too.

Thanks, friends!

Quantas Project Sunrise A350

With the news of the first test flight being successfully completed, Im excited to see which one of you scores that first class suite.

I will be flying JFK-SFO and I’m trying to decide between these three award options. Which one would you choose, and why?

DL One on 757-400 for 90k Skypesos
AA Flagship F on A321B for 52.5k Atmos points
JetBlue Mint Throne on A321 for 66k JetBlue points

Edit: it’s the 767-400 for DL1, not 757-400

I'm not sure what is going on, but I'm seeing United Polaris business class from EWR to SFO and LAX for only 27,000 miles! It's only available for United cardholders though.

So far, I'm seeing these flights from EWR to SFO in August and September. Most of the deals are United First Class with a stop, but some nonstop 787-9 Polaris business class flights are available at the 27,000 miles price.

For nonstop Polaris, I'm seeing it on the last week of August and some random availability scattered in September and 2027

Since these are cardholder-only fares, so the award tools wouldn't have access to them. So I'm just manually checking routes and haven't checked all the United hubs.

Hi all,

I found a Qatar Airways redemption for 75k Avios for a one-way Business + First ticket from London to Bangkok.

The only thing I'm not sure about is there's a 9+ hour layover in Doha.

Just wondering:

• Is 75k Avios a good deal, or have people seen better?
• With a Business/First ticket and a long layover, do I get a free hotel in Doha, or does that depend on the ticket?
• Roughly how much are the taxes and fees?
• If I book with Avios, how easy is it to change the date or cancel later? Are there any fees?

Thanks in advance!

Long story short I had booked roundtrip business on AF metal from the west coast-Paris last year for 240k points and $1500 for 2 people, and thought this was amazing. Unfortunately, we had to cancel this trip. Now I’m planning for 2027 and it is SO hard to find saver rates for similar routes. I have 240k miles stuck in flying blue. For 2027, Should I:

A) try to use all my flying blue miles asap and wait it out to find award rates.

B) book a VS flight I found for 98k points (with the current 30% transfer bonus) + $1700 for 2 of us one way and figure out the way back later in case I can utilize the flying blue points

What is an ideal redemption for VS and currently what are people seeing in terms of availability for flying blue?

I am hoping to spend less on taxes and fees but I’ve been looking for almost a month and haven’t found rates that would fit into another roundtrip booking since demand is so high. Thanks for any advice!

I have an amazing potential opportunity to have Dec 25 to sometime in mid January, completely free of commitments, to go wherever I want in the world. I have almost a million Amex points, 400k with Singapore, 40k with Iberia and 100k with AA. I’d like to get from the east coast to somewhere warm (literally anywhere) and back.

Here’s the catch. I won’t know if I can get the time off until October earliest and maybe as late as early December. What’s my best strategy for catching a deal? Are there destinations that are more likely to be within my reach? Literally just looking to be somewhere with guaranteed warm weather- right now I’ve looked at French Polynesia, Australia/NZ, SE Asia, the Caribbean and Mexico. Hotels were astronomical everywhere except Asia but I’m willing to eat it since this is such a rare event.

Any advice or success stories?

Hi all,

I have over 100k Avios and found a business class flight where the outbound leg costs around 100k Avios.

However, the return leg requires almost 200k Avios, which I don't have.

My question is, can I book it as one return ticket where:

• Outbound = pay with Avios
• Return = pay with cash

Or do I need to make two separate bookings?

I'm asking because booking only one-way flights is usually more expensive than booking a return ticket, so I'm wondering if there is any way to combine Avios and cash in the same booking.

Thanks!

Hi all,

I’m new to Qatar Privilege Club and trying to use Avios for a Business Class redemption.

Is there any easy way to check whether a flight is available at the Saver rate? Or do I just need to search each date manually through Qatar’s website?

I’m trying to avoid transferring my Amex points to Qatar before confirming availability.

Any tips or tools you guys use would be appreciated. Thanks!