Skyrocket your mining success for mileage award availability by looking for smaller veins to exploit
Amid the relentless challenges of getting reasonable deals on premium award tickets these days, many people are increasingly becoming anxious about playing miles and points games.So, let’s be positive.Even though mileage award availability isn’t excellent across the board at the moment, there are deals out there if you know where - and how - to look. Here are some common mistakes to avoid when searching for availability.
How Most Travelers Search for Mileage Seatsand Fail
Let’s say you have a big trip in mind, and you search for your ideal itinerary. For example, from Boise to Budapest with four seats in First Class for a single departure and return date. The odds of getting favorable search results for ALL these requirements are astronomically bad. In other words, it will never happen in most cases.This is when most people give up and start to curse the airlines and figure their miles are worthless.Not you. Not anymore.
Nine Miles-Mining Mistakes to AvoidAfter Initial Search Failure
After you don’t find availability for EXACTLY what you want, don’t give up. You can radically increase your chances of finding availability if you avoid making these nine mining mistakes on your follow-up searches.
Common Mistake to Avoid #1
Continuing to search for availability based on ALL the seats you ultimately want
Pro Solution: Try searching for one seat, then search for a second seat, and so on. Why? Because when you search for a group of seats, you often won’t find the available one-seat opportunities. You don’t have to get all the seats you want in order to use miles. In other words, if you start out searching for four seats, and only three are available, many airline search engines will simply show, “no availability.” I’d take three out of four seats with miles if I only had to pay for one with cash. Wouldn’t you? This is the most common, overlooked error many travelers make. Start looking for smaller opportunities at a time, and expand your search when you find out where they exist.
Also remember that you can book whatever you can and continue to check for award space, which tends to open up as the departure date gets closer. If it does open up, cancel the paid cash ticket, because most airlines will allow you to re-book the cash ticket.
Common Mistake to Avoid #2
Only searching for round-trip availability
Pro Solution: In this situation, do what FCF does and search for one-way availability. That’s because if the return ticket isn’t available you could always A) buy a one-way return ticket, or B) return with another mileage program you have access to (with miles or your points’ transfer partners), or C) use a mileage program that offers waitlists usually with a small number seats that clear closer to departure, for example Cathay Pacific and All Nippon.
Or, book round-trip seats using two different mileage redemption rates. There might be only one saver seat and one non-saver and it might be a more miles but could end up being cheaper than using another airline mileage program that is more expensive one-way.
Common Mistake to Avoid #3
Searching for two First Class award seats
Pro Solution: Grab a seat in First Class and one in Business. Business Class tends to have better availability if only because the cabin is much larger. In fact, you could even get a seat on a different flight. It’s not perfect, but at least you’ll both get to your destination in comfort. And as they say, absence makes the heart grow fonder.
Or, if you’re more flexible, wait until closer to your departure date when more seats might be released. For example, Lufthansa First Class seats typically don’t get released until two weeks in advance when using partner miles like United.
Common Mistake to Avoid #4
Searching for your full itinerary all at the same time
Pro Solution: Concentrate on the long-haul segment first if your ideal itinerary isn’t available. If you’re traveling internationally from a smaller U.S. city, focus your efforts on the most important part of the journey: the long-haul flight. Let’s say you live in Boise and are going to London via Chicago. Obviously the priority comfort leg is Chicago to London. If you divide the legs, you’re more likely to conquer them. You might also consider other departure or arrival gateways. It’s likely that it won’t be too difficult to move between cities. If all else fails, book the connecting flight to the hub city to connect to the international flight/leg in coach using miles or buy a second ticket to the hub city. Think about positioning flights.
Another option to consider is a stopover. Consider this scenario: The second leg of the award reservation is not available right after you land from the first leg. Instead, it’s a day or two later. For example, from San Francisco to Bangkok on Singapore Airlines, the first flight from San Francisco to Singapore could be available, but the flight from Singapore to Bangkok might not be on that day. But if it’s available on the following day or two, then stopping over will still let you travel on Singapore Airlines. And Singapore’s fun! Great food, nice hotels… It’s an awesome place to visit and you’ll get to enjoy a little bonus trip. But you’d never know about the opportunity if you didn’t break up your itinerary and search for long-haul availability discreetly.
Common Mistake to Avoid #5
Only trying to score round-trip award seats in and out of the same arrival or departure city
Pro Solution: Try an open-jaw strategy, which involves arriving at and departing from two different cities. This works really well in Europe where you can get to other cities easily. For example, you could fly into Paris and return from London. We published a special report all about it here.
Common Mistake to Avoid #6
Only looking for one specific destination city – when miles seem to get you everywhere BUT there
Pro Solution: We say this a lot: be an opportunity traveler. Widen your horizons – literally. Sometimes the best experiences are the ones you never expected in destinations you hadn’t imagined. If you’re flexible, you can visit more places than you ever dreamed of, and because you’re flexible, you’ll be able to get there at a much lower cost. For example, don’t close your mind to travel to Rio if low-cost mileage is available, just because you have Paris on your mind.
Always keep your eye on new routes – even seasonal routes that airlines offer, as they might open up new ideas for you. Study travel blogs, travel magazines, and destination websites to get inspiration
Common Mistake to Avoid #7
Only looking for award space on the airline in the program you have miles with
Pro Solution: Remember that mileage program partners are often the (only) way to go. FCF has previously published special reports on American Airlines and United Airlines, here and here. Airline partners can open up lots of cabin doors because airline partner space greatly increases your chances of getting the dates and destinations you want. For example, in researching a recent article, we looked at flying New York to Lisbon using United miles. The United flight didn’t have any space, but United’s partner, TAP Air Portugal, did.
Another option to consider is buying miles or points. When it comes to buying airline miles the best time to do this is when they go on sale with bigger discounts (recent opportunity here which had American miles as low as 1.84¢ each and here which had United miles as low as 1.75¢ each when you buy the maximum).
Or, buy Amex Membership Reward points for 2.5 cents each and transfer them to 19 different mileage program, including All Nippon, Qantas, and Singapore. Check out How to Buy American Express Membership Rewards Points, and When to Buy Miles Instead of Purchasing a Normal Published Fare.
In general, FCF wouldn’t recommend buying miles right now unless you have a planned trip, or if you don’t have any miles in your account and know you’ll eventually be able to use them. That’s because the landscape is very dynamic at the moment and points sitting in your “bank” could become devalued.
Common Mistake to Avoid #8
Only searching for award space on specific dates
Pro Solution: Most mileage award programs have a calendar view (or a week view), which is a great tool when searching for award space. It means you can filter by class of service and then see what dates have space, and book accordingly.
Common Mistake to Avoid #9
Only searching online for award space
Pro Solution: Go “old school” by picking up the phone to call for award space. Also, not all partner airlines can be booked online with miles. For example, with Delta you have to call for partner airlines Air Tahiti Nui and Garuda. Websites can have problems with their online calendars and not all airline partner award space shows up online. When you pick up the phone and make a call, no airline partner space options are missed. For special reports on American and United go here and here.
Common Mistake to Avoid #10
Only searching for award space with one mileage program
Pro Solution: Even within the same airline alliance, airlines release different mileage allotments to their partners. Take a recent search of Lufthansa flights from New York to Frankfurt for travel on June 10 using United miles or LifeMiles, for example. With United miles you had two out of three possible flights available. Meanwhile, LifeMiles did not even have one flight available. So, when all else fails, consider going to different partner airline sites to see if there is better availability with an airline program you have miles with, or is an airline partner in a points program you bank with.
[aside headline="Bonus: Grab What You Find As Soon As You Find It:" alignment="aligncenter" width="big" headline_size="default"]Know the airlines that will hold mileage award space. American, for example, will hold free award space for five days for free. And for a small fee, United gives you a hold-time of three or seven days on United flights. More on all that here.[/aside]
You now have the infrastructure to mine for award tickets like a pro.[/caption]