The entire reason for signing up for an airline’s loyalty program is to earn miles that can then be redeemed for flights. The most appealing aspect of using miles is to use them for flights in business class, the top cabin offered by most airlines, but airline award pricing can be unpredictable. This is why it’s become a common method to ‘earn and burn’ miles, as building a large stockpile increases the chance that they lose value, given that airlines have been devaluing their miles with increasing frequency.

However, there remain strategic ways to truly maximize value when booking business class award tickets. Although miles have been devalued in recent years and many airlines have switched to dynamic award pricing, there are other tricks available to redeem miles at a genuinely good value. Credit cards have become particularly important when booking flights with miles, but even the way that you book a flight can make a major difference in how many miles your ticket may cost.

The ‘Wait & See’ Method

Keep An Eye On Prices Until They Drop

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Some passengers travel because they need to be somewhere, and airlines know this, which is why certain fare types with more flexibility cost significantly more money. However, when booking dynamically priced award tickets, flexibility is key to maximizing value, because prices can fluctuate rapidly since they’re tied to cash prices. Generally, the cheapest tickets with miles can be found at either the very beginning of the booking period or last-minute, within a week or two before departure.

Airlines usually open their booking schedules about 11 to 12 months before the flight, and those who are willing to commit to booking this early will usually find fares are thousands of miles lower. As time goes on, prices usually rise, but they can also dip, which requires careful monitoring and making a judgment call. Closer to departure, however, airlines often drop award fares again, especially if there’s a significant amount of unsold award seats, and these prices can be very appealing.

Prices are generally higher between the beginning of the booking period and a few weeks before departure. Most people book flights a few months before departure, and given that demand is higher during this period, airlines take advantage of the opportunity by charging higher prices. Of course, booking far out also means that you have to commit to a flight much earlier than most customers are comfortable with, while waiting for prices to drop introduces uncertainty.

Searching For A Short-Haul Fifth Freedom Flight

Lower Prices & A Long-Haul Product

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Some airlines operate ‘fifth freedom routes’, where flights operate between two nations that are not the airline’s home country as part of a route that continues to the airline’s home country. Some of these segments can be quite long, such as Emirates’ fifth freedom routes between Milan/Athens and New York JFK/Newark, or Singapore Airlines’ services from Frankfurt to New York JFK. These tickets are typically priced in line with what you’d expect for a seven or eight-hour flight.

The true deals can be found on shorter fifth-freedom segments. Emirates, for example, flies a daily Boeing 777 between Miami and Bogota, while Emirates and United Airlines both fly between Bangkok and Hong Kong. Prices can be quite appealing, but what makes these fifth-freedom routes truly unique is that airlines typically use widebody aircraft with lie-flat business class seating. However, they don’t usually charge higher prices than local competitors, whether by miles or cash pricing.

From Miami to Bogota, Emirates competes against American Airlines, which offers business class passengers recliner seats, while Avianca offers economy seats with a blocked middle seat. Between Bangkok and Hong Kong, both Thai Airways and Cathay Pacific deploy a mix of internationally configured widebodies as well as narrowbodies with recliner seats. What’s more, airlines operating fifth-freedom flights sometimes drop award pricing even more to fill up their cabins.

Optimizing Your Itinerary

You’ll Need Flexibility To Maximize Value

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Most passengers just want to fly directly from one city to another, or with only one connection, and typically in the same cabin throughout the trip. As such, airlines charge a pretty penny for such tickets, including on award bookings. However, carriers also price tickets differently depending on the origin city: US-originating flights are often more expensive than those originating from another country.

On dynamically priced award flights, the same applies, while airlines with more static award pricing still set different fares depending on the origin/destination. In addition, it can often be a better value to mix and match segments on different airlines to maximize points value. This can be risky if you’re traveling with airlines that aren’t interline partners, but this is part of the game.

This strategy essentially also combines the prior two, given that short-haul fifth-freedom flights often offer an excellent value when considering the stage length and the product, as well as the need to monitor airline award pricing and be flexible enough to construct a complex routing on short notice.

What can also be helpful is to combine segments in economy with those in business class. Premium cabins provide the most value on long-haul flights, but combining two premium segments can dramatically increase the price. A two-leg itinerary where the shorter flight is in economy is a much better value overall, depending on how much lower the price is. As a whole, maximizing value from points requires flexibility and the desire to truly optimize your trip.

Using Credit Card Points

Transfers & Bonuses Can Significantly Change The Value Of A Ticket

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Many credit cards offer members rewards for card spending in the form of points, which can be used for flights and hotels through the bank’s travel portal. However, these points can also be transferred to an airline’s loyalty programs, and these can often unlock award fares at a much greater value than simply earning airline miles due to transfer ratios. Some programs offer a straight 1:1 transfer, meaning that 1,000 credit card points are converted to 1,000 airline miles, but even a 5:4 or 4:3 ratio can still be valuable.

American Express has 17 airline transfer partners along with three hotel partners. Chase points can be transferred to 11 airlines and three hotels, all at a 1:1 ratio. Capital One allows transfers to 18 different airlines as well as four hotels. Citi partners with 15 airlines, five hotels, as well as with Virgin Red for events, and transfer ratios vary depending on the specific credit card used. Bilt Rewards has 23 total transfer partners, while Wells Fargo offers 1:1 transfers with nine airlines and a 1:2 transfer ratio with two hotel programs.

However, in addition to the standard transfer ratio, credit card providers also offer transfer bonuses. As of the time of writing, Chase is offering a 30% bonus for transfers to Virgin Atlantic Flying Club, while American Express is offering a 25% bonus for transfers to Air France-KLM Flying Blue and a 15% bonus to Avianca LifeMiles. Citi is also offering a 30% bonus for transfers to Qatar Airways Privilege Club Avios.

Booking With Partner Programs

There Are Great Deals To Be Found Here

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Not all loyalty programs operate the same. Some airlines use dynamic pricing, while others use static pricing. However, when it comes to selling award seats on partner airline flights, carriers do sometimes use static pricing even if they otherwise set award fares dynamically. Often, flying on a carrier’s partner is a better value if the pricing is static. American Airlines, for instance, dynamically prices its own tickets while using static pricing on flights operated by partners like Etihad Airways.

In addition, some partner airlines offer better pricing than what the operating carrier charges to its own elite members. Returning to the previous example, American Airlines usually charges 70,000 AAdvantage miles to fly on Etihad in business class from the US to the Middle East one-way. Etihad Airways, on the other hand, asks for at least 108,000 miles for the same ticket, but most members need to pay more as the carrier sets award pricing differently depending on a member’s status.

It may seem counterintuitive to book award tickets with a different airline than the one operating the flight, but this is one of the best methods to find lucrative prices. Through this tactic, as well as strategically transferring credit card points and being flexible, it’s still possible to fly in premium cabins for a good value, but it does require research and more effort than just buying an airline ticket from point A to point B.