How to Know Which Award Chart to Use Can Change How Comfortable You Are Many Hours
In the world of free award travel there is a fundamental divide in how airlines calculate the miles you will be charged for free award travel: “zones” versus “flight distance”.
[aside headline="Laying the Groundwork" alignment="alignright" width="half" headline_size="default"]The key to taking advantage of “award chart discrepancies” is planning ahead to have miles primed and ready. That means “diversifying your mileage portfolio” for the greatest reach by carrying the right credit card(s)--American Express Starwood Preferred Guest, any American Express card that gets you into the Membership Rewards program, or the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card. With these cards, you can access many of the most lucrative award charts.[/aside]
A zone award chart system divides the world into regions (e.g., the 48 contiguous states and Canada), with every destination within that region costing the same number of miles. A flight-distance chart is stricter and simpler: the distance between departure and arrival cities determines the miles required for a free award ticket. Most U.S. and European carriers have tended to use zone award charts while Asian carriers gravitate to the flight-distance system.
If you’re willing to leave the comfort zone of your primary carrier’s award chart, are willing to do some searching online, and are willing to learn how to the play the two charts against each other, you can take advantage of anomalies which often “net a free upgrade on many routes”.
Understanding Loyalty Program Partner Awards
This is an award you book with miles from one airline loyalty program for travel on one of its partners (e.g. using American miles for travel with BA).
You’d think that alliance award charts would be standardized by now, but that’s not the case. That’s where it gets interest-ing—some never took the time to align free mileage award costs with one another. So, partner and alliance members can sometimes charge a different number of miles for the same flight.
For example, you can redeem miles with Japan Airlines for a British Airways flight (both are oneworld members) and by taking advantage of the difference the two charge for a free award ticket—realizing savings equivalent to a “free upgrade.” You just have to know what chart to use.
Working the System
Let’s take a Los Angeles-London flight on British Airways as an example. BA charges 150,000 Avios points round-trip for a free First Class award ticket. But if you try to redeem miles for the same BA flight us-ing Japan Airlines Mileage Bank miles (a points-transfer partner with Starwood), your cost is only 100,000 miles round-trip. As you can see the sav-ing can be substantial. That 50,000 mile reduction in cost is the equivalent of a “free upgrade,” since BA charges 100,000 miles for a free Business Class award ticket. Not bad.
Here’s a Quick Course on How to Uncover Opportunities
Step one: Select your flight and find out the total number of flight miles. That’s most easily done on a website such as Expedia or Orbitz. Taking Chicago-Paris for our sample route and using Orbitz, we found that two major airlines fly daily non-stop, American and United. Clicking “United” and then “flight details” on the fare page brings up a box that yields the flight miles: 4,139 miles one-way, 8,278 round-trip.
Step two: Determine the airline’s alliance, so that you know who your possible airline partners are. Most of them have the affiliation on the home page. United belongs to the Star Alliance
Step three: Narrow the options.
Part 1: Determine the airline’s alliance partners. Go to the Star Alliance homepage and look up “member airlines”. Star Alliance has 27, and each one could offer the lowest award.
Part 2: Narrow down the possibilities according to the air-line in your credit card portfolio. For our sample case, we will use the Starwood Preferred Guest program, which links you to 30 different airline mileage programs.
By quickly ruling out the airlines with no point-transfer possibility, we are left with 11 alternatives: Air Canada, All Nippon, Asiana, Austrian, Brussels, LOT Polish, Lufthansa, Singapore, SWISS, Thai, and US Airways.
Step four: Compare mileage cost.
Part 1: Compare partner award cost (this can take some effort, which can net you free upgrades, don’t forget.) Check each airline’s alliance award mileage chart—the good news here is that five airlines belong to the same mileage program (Austrian, Brussels Airlines, LOT, Lufthansa, and SWISS are part of Miles & More, the Lufthansa program)—now compare it to the airline flying the route (in this case, United) because most mileage program members redeem their miles on the airline’s mileage program with whom they are flying.
Part 2: Do the math. The chart below highlights only the air-lines that offer a free mileage award lower than United, with the winner being All Nippon at 68,000 miles in Business— only 8,000 more than United charges for economy—and 100,000 miles in First, the same amount United charges for Business Class. Another opportunity of getting the equivalent of a “free upgrade.”
Award Chart Anomalies: United vs. Partners on Chicago-Paris
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