Most people decide award seats do not exist because they searched in the one place least likely to show them. The seats are usually there.
Award seats and cash seats are separate stock
An airline releases a set number of seats for points, in specific cabins on specific dates, independent of how full the cash cabin is. A flight with three expensive cash seats left can still have award space. A flight with plenty of cheap cash seats can have none.
A full-looking flight and a high fare both tell you nothing about award availability.
Search the partner’s site
A partner’s own site often shows space that your programme’s search hides, so check the operating carrier directly. Qatar Airways is worth checking for Asia routings even when you plan to book elsewhere. Its search confirms whether the seat exists before you spend an evening hunting a phantom.
Alliance partners do not all see the same space, and they do not all display it well. Your programme’s website is often the worst tool for partner seats. Some show partner space only partially, some not at all online, and some only after you phone.
The method:
- Search the operating carrier’s own site, using that carrier’s programme, to find out whether the seat exists.
- Once you know it does, go back to your own programme and ask for it.
- Use the telephone if the website will not show it. Phone agents still find space that websites do not.
Most people search the other way round, which is why they give up.
The same seat has several prices
Two programmes in one alliance can charge very different points for the identical partner seat, because each sets its own award chart or dynamic pricing. The gap is often the biggest factor in the whole process.
So the best programme to hold points in is not necessarily the airline you fly most. It is the one that prices your usual routes cheaply and lets you search without a phone call.
Price the total
Points are half the cost. Taxes, fees and carrier-imposed surcharges are the other half. On some carriers the surcharges make an award a meaningful fraction of a cash ticket; on others they are trivial.
Get to a final total, points plus cash, before calling a deal good. An award costing many points and little cash can beat one costing fewer points and a painful surcharge.
Habits that shorten the search
- Search one leg at a time. A round trip that finds nothing usually has one bad direction, and separate searches show which.
- Move the date, not the plan. Award space clusters, so checking the days either side beats checking a different route.
- Search in the two windows. Space tends to appear when schedules first open, and again close to departure when the airline gives up on selling the seat. The middle is the barren stretch, and it is when most people search.
- Hold the seat if the programme allows it. A temporary hold turns a frantic decision into a considered one.
Limits
This is our own method, not an operator’s rule. Award programmes change pricing and partner access with little notice, so what you find and what it costs is whatever the airline decided this month.