Fasten your seatbelts for the trip to Points and Miles Land! Photo by: Evan Berman

While most of us want to be jetting across continents and oceans whenever we fly, for the majority of people, flying domestic US routes makes up most of our air travel. As you may have noticed, prices are extremely high, especially if you need to fly last-minute. Fortunately, there are options to use your hard-earned points and miles to pay for domestic travel (and sometimes get great values!)

Today I’m going to share with you how to use your points and miles to cover domestic flights, leaving you to pay only the ~$6 in taxes each way. If you’re new to this site and/or don’t know what the points are to which I am referring, look at this article for a summary.

Please note: this article is not for beginners. To see how to set up these accounts and more on transferable points, follow these links insert link to transferrable points article and create/link to after creating how to set up other frequent flier programs. Bookmark this page as your reference for booking these domestic flights– the most important skill in this game is learning to understand award charts.

The Strategy:

For the purposes of this article, let’s assume that you are flying on one of the 3 “legacy” airlines: United, American, or Delta. If you find a flight on Spirit, Frontier, Allegiant, Avelo, Breeze, Silver, or any other discount airline, you cannot redeem transferable points (though most of them do have co-branded credit cards). JetBlue and Southwest offer fixed-value redemptions and as such, you will pay more in points if cash fares are high.

You will rarely find the best value from using an airline’s miles to fly on the same airline (ex. Using SkyMiles to fly Delta). As such, you will need to leverage the partners in an airline’s alliance to find the cheapest point redemptions. Here are the best options for each legacy airline:

American:

American AAdvantage:

American offers decently priced awards on its own flights, particularly with the web specials that it runs (such as 7,500 miles for a one-way from Dallas to Cancun or from Miami to Philadelphia). Excluding the web specials, economy flights offer between 1.15-1.3 cents per mile on award flights. There is no award chart.

British Airways and Iberia Avios:

British Avios and Iberia offer slightly lower prices for distance, but charge per segment. That means if you are not flying non-stop, Qantas is often the better option. The most relevant information is below (note: the pricing for both is identical):

• Flying a 0-650 mile segment in economy (one-way) will cost you 6,000 Avios
• Flying a 651-1,151 mile segment in economy (one-way) will cost you 9,000 Avios
• Flying a 1,152-2,000 mile segment in economy (one-way) will cost you 11,000 Avios
• Flying a 2,001-3,000 mile segment in economy (one-way) will cost you 13,000 Avios

Neither airline publishes a formal award chart as with Qantas, but they have similar zones. The information for Iberia was taken from here as well as from personal experience.

Qantas Avios:

Qantas offers the best pricing for short flights with a connection. Below you will find pictures of a recent flight that I took and a step-by-step guide to booking the flight. Here is a link to the award charts for Qantas. The most relevant information is below:

• Flying 0-600 cumulative miles in economy (one-way) will cost you 8,000 Qantas Avios.
• Flying 601-1200 cumulative miles in economy (one-way) will cost you 12,000 Qantas Avios.
• Flying 1201-2400 cumulative miles in economy (one-way) will cost you 18,000 Qantas Avios.

Delta:

Delta SkyMiles:

While it is unlikely to ever be an incredible value, Delta SkyMiles do offer an option for redemption against the price of a paid fare. In fact, if you desire Delta Elite Status, you can earn MQM’s and MQD’s through an award flight. Insert link that shows why Delta Elite Status/Elite Status in general is desirable.

There is no award chart for Delta. In my experience, Delta offers roughly 1.2-1.5 cents per mile for Economy and 1.15-1.45 cents per mile for Comfort+. If cash fares are high or if you have a lot of Delta SkyMiles and/or American Express Membership Reward Points, this could be an option.

Aeromexico Club Premier:

While Aeromexico’s customer service is famously sub-par, they have been known to possess a lot of award space that other partner’s may not be able to access. insert article about dynamic pricing versus award charts/fixed prices As such, if you are willing to take the risk, Aeromexico can be a good option, especially as AmEx points transfer at 1-1.6, such that 30,000 AmEx points leads to 48,000 Aeromexico Club Premier points.

Air France/KLM Flying Blue:

Air France and KLM have a joint loyalty program known as Flying Blue. No word on whether you have to be sad to fly book a flight or not 🙂 . There is no award chart and Air France’s website can be quite glitchy (note: if a search returns no flight results, you’ll need to exit the page and login again before changing your search), but if you find award availability, you may be able to find award flights for 11,500 miles each way for a flight anywhere in the U.S. in economy.

Virgin Atlantic Flying Club:

Like British Airways and Iberia, Virgin Atlantic offers an inexpensive award chart for non-stop flights. However, should you fly with a connection, each segment is priced separately. Here is a list of the full award chart. The highlights include:

• Flying a 0-500 mile segment in economy (one-way) will cost you 7,500 Virgin Points
• Flying a 501-1,000 mile segment in economy (one-way) will cost you 8,500 Virgin Points
• Flying a 1,001-1,500 mile segment in economy (one-way) will cost you 11,500 Virgin Points
• Flying a 1,501-2,000 mile segment in economy (one-way) will cost you 12,500 Virgin Points
• Flying a 2,001-3,000 mile segment in economy (one-way) will cost you 15,000 Virgin Points

There are many other sweet spots for redemption on partner flights. Insert list of how to use Virgin points for most value.

United:

United MileagePlus:

As with American and Delta, you may use your United MileagePlus miles to book an award flight. These will generally provide 1.15-1.35 cents per mile in value.

Air Canada Aeroplan:

Air Canada’s well-known and well-loved Aeroplan loyalty program was recently revamped and can be found here (PDF). You might be a proud American, but using this Canadian reward plan is still a good move for the freedom it brings 🙂 . The highlights include:

• Flying 0-500 cumulative miles in economy (one-way) will cost you 6,000 Aeroplan points
• Flying 501-1,500 cumulative miles in economy (one-way) will cost you 10,000 Aeroplan points
• Flying 1,501-2,750 cumulative miles in economy (one-way) will cost you 12,500 Aeroplan points

Many of the best redemptions on Aeroplan come from business and first-class awards. Insert a link to best Aeroplan redemptions.

Avianca LifeMiles:

Avianca, Colombia’s preeminent airline, offers no formal award chart, but this post from Frequent Miler offers a great overview of the pricing on award flights. The highlights are:

• Flying completely within any zone will cost you 7,500 LifeMiles
• Flying from Zone 1 to Zone 2 will cost you 10,000 LifeMiles
• Flying from Zone 1 or Zone 2 to Zone 3 will cost you 12,500 LifeMiles

For clarification, here are the states listed in each Zone:

• Zone 1: Connecticut, Delaware, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington D.C.
• Zone 2: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Wisconsin
• Zone 3: Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, Wyoming

Singapore:

The award chart for Singapore Airlines’ KrisFlyer loyalty program can be found here. You can fly round trip anywhere in North America (the U.S. and Canada, excluding Hawaii) for 28,000 miles. While this value is poor for short flights, it could be useful for a long flight to Canada or if you cannot access Avianca LifeMiles.

Turkish Airlines:

The award chart for Turkish Airlines’ Miles & Smiles loyalty program can be found here. You can fly round trip anywhere in North America (Antilles Nether, Bermuda, Canada, Mexico, United States and Hawaii) for 30,000 miles. That said, as Frequent Miler and others have recounted, Turkish does allow for:

• one-way flights anywhere in the US (including to Hawaii) for just 7,500 miles in economy or 12,500 miles in business class
• one-way flights to other countries in North America for 10,000 miles in economy or 15,000 miles in business class

The limiting factor here is finding saver award availability on United business class flights, especially those to Hawaii.

Key Takeaways:

This article shows you the strategy for how to use your transferable points (or existing airline miles) to fly domestic without having to pay the high cash prices that we have seen these last few months. Check out this post for what an example of what this looks like in actuality.

Remember: just because these you see these prices doesn’t mean that you can book them. You must find award space with one of these award programs for the flight that you want. Not sure what that means or need a refresher on how to find award availability? Insert link to article on how to find award availability.

Evan