Use your points to book a trip, maybe to Norway! Photo by: Evan Berman

Merry Christmas, everyone! In the spirit of giving, I wanted to provide a quick guide on how to book flights with points and miles. If you’re interested in saving money while travelling (I would assume everyone reading this is, no?), you’ve probably learned about the concept of using points and miles to book flights. Whether you’ve done this yourself 1000’s of times or this is your first time, this is a straightforward guide. Note: these flights are available as of 12/24/22.

This process can be replicated for other airlines and destinations, but here is the scenario for our traveler, we’ll call him Nick Claus:

• Nick C. lives in North Pole, NY with his wife
• The Claus’ are celebrating an anniversary (they wouldn’t tell me how many years!) and are looking to get away to a tropical vacation in the Maldives
• They have more free time in the summer, but are limited to June or July
• The trip will be 10 days
• Nick & Mrs. Claus have 260,000 AmEx Membership Rewards Points and 240,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards Points
• The Claus’ prefer to travel in Business or First Class across the Atlantic but are not picky on flights of less than 3 hours
• For now, I’ll give a highlight of the lodging options. A future post will detail booking hotels with points and miles

The Approach:

If you want to find lower prices, you can generally either choose a location or dates, but not both. If you’re dead-set on visiting Greece, be flexible enough to look for dates across a month or more. However, if you can only travel during a certain time period (hello Spring Break or July 4th weekend!), do yourself a favor and be open to different destinations. Here is a good list to follow when seeking to book this type of trip:

1. Identify and book the hardest legs to find first
   • Be flexible. If you want to fly overseas, don’t just check from the nearest airport. Look at the major airports– New York, Philadelphia, Charlotte, Miami, Houston, Dallas, Houston, and Chicago on the East Coast and San Francisco, LA, Seattle, Chicago, and Denver on the West Coast
2. Assuming that there is full availability on every route, find the airlines and cities that you would most like to fly. Identify the prices (both points and dollars) and make note of the best deals.
3. Search award availability (not price) on United and Air Canada for Star Alliance airlines, American, British Airways, and Qantas for OneWorld airlines, and Delta for most SkyTeam airlines.
   • Confused? I’ll walk you through the alliances below
4. Confirm award availability with another website to avoid phantom award space (Expert Flyer is great for most airlines)
5. Pay attention to transfer times to the airline with which you intend to transfer points
6. As soon as the points have hit your account, book the flights!

Real Life Example

Let’s get back to Santa Nick Claus’ trip.

If you recall, the Claus’ wants to travel to the Maldives or Tahiti in June or July and wants to fly business or first on the long-haul flights. They have plenty of AmEx and Chase points at their disposal and live in upstate New York. I find it easiest to work backwards. What airline and which cities fly directly to these tropical destinations?

Maldives:

There are other airports, but the primary international airport is Velana International Airport, which serves Malé. A quick Wikipedia search shows the following airlines and destinations serve this airport:

That’s a lot of options! Let’s narrow it down to places that are easy to get to from the US and you might like to explore:

• Air France, via Paris- CDG
• Austrian, via Vienna
• British Airways, via London-Heathrow
• Emirates, via Dubai
• Etihad, via Abu Dhabi
• Iberia, via Madrid
• LOT, via several cities, but most likely Warsaw- Chopin
• Qatar Airways, via Doha
• Singapore Airlines, via Singapore
• Turkish Airlines, via Istanbul
• Virgin Atlantic, via London-Heathrow (though this does not begin until October 2023, so we will exclude for this search)

That’s 11 options that have non-stop flights from the US and non-stop flights to the Maldives. Let’s follow the steps laid out above:

Assuming Availability on All Routes, Identify the Flights and Airlines You’d Like to Fly

Personally, I’d vote the following airlines head and shoulders above the rest (alphabetical order):

• Emirates Airlines (First Class)
• Etihad (either Business Class or First Class on the A380)
• Qatar Airways (Q-Suites)
• Singapore Airlines (Singapore Suites)
• Turkish Airlines (Business Class)

That being said, the other options could prove viable as well. For now, let’s assume that Claus family wants to fly on one of these airlines. Now it’s time to find award availability. I will show the process for finding each, starting with Emirates:

Emirates

Routes: DXB-MLE (Dubai to Malé, Maldives nonstop)

Search Using: Emirates

Cabin: First Class

Preferred Aircraft: Boeing 777 (with new First Suites, only available on certain flights, seats are 1-1-1) or Airbus 380

Emirates unfortunately just raised all business and first class awards involving their hub in Dubai. There is plenty of award availability in June, but it is 142,000 points per person roundtrip from Dubai to Malé, you’d need to tack on another 140,000+ points to get from the US to Dubai. As Mr. Claus often says, “No, No, No.”

Etihad

Routes: AUH-MLE (Abu Dhabi to Malé, non-stop)

Search Using: Air Canada (or Etihad for First Class)

Cabin: First (on A380) or Business

Preferred Aircraft: A380 (first) or Boeing 787

Etihad has several great options for booking business class awards– book through American Airlines for the best deals. If you don’t have access to those miles, go with Air Canada. If you have AA miles, you could book for 70,000 miles from the US to the Maldives! Air Canada has a little bit higher redemption rate: 110,000 points each way for flights of more than 8,000 miles. Flying from JFK to MLE with a stop in AUH clocks in at 8,743 miles distance.

Search for award availability via Air Canada no matter whether you intend to book via Air Canada or American Airlines. Keep in mind that this is per person one way, so you’d need 440,000 Air Canada Aeroplan points and roughly $464 in fees for 2 people (fees are higher returning to the US).

Singapore

Routes: SIN-MLE

Search Using: Air Canada or United

Cabin: Business Class

Aircraft: Boeing 787

Singapore Airlines has an interesting approach to providing award availability to partner airlines. For intra-Asia flights (such as Singapore to Malé), you may book business or first class seats via a partner airline. However, in all other situations, you must use Singapore KrisFlyer Miles to book Singapore. This will focus on the SIN-MLE leg, but I will give other options for getting to Singapore. Booking via Air Canada, I found availability from Singapore to Male for 40,000 points each way.

Unfortunately, there is rarely availability to Singapore from the United States. In this case, I found seats available on Monday, May 22, but nothing in the rest of June. Those seats would be 143,500 points per person to get from Newark to Singapore on the world’s longest flight. Adding on a flight to Malé from Singapore would bring the total to 179,500 points per person each way. That’s a ton of points!

Turkish

Routes: IST-MLE

Search Using: Air Canada or United (Turkish as last resort)

Cabin: Business Class

Aircraft: Boeing 787

Turkish Airlines is well known for having terrific service and catering on their flights, with food and drinks provided by Do & Co. Additionally, flying with Turkish means a stop at the gigantic lounge in the new Istanbul Airport. Unfortunately, there is no saver-level availability on these summer flights. Consequently, United and Air Canada does not show these flights and the price is 180,000 points per person each way.

What Should Nick and Mrs. Claus Do?

I would recommend that the Claus family books the seats with Etihad via Air Canada. As a reminder, to book these seats, they will need 440,000 points and $464. Fortunately, Nick can transfer all 260,000 AmEx Membership Rewards (MR) points and 180,000 of the 240,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points (UR) to Aeroplan and book online. He should pay the taxes and fees with a card that rewards for air travel, such as the AmEx Platinum (5x on Flights) or Chase Sapphire Reserve (3x on Travel). What happens to the 60,000 remaining UR Points? How about 2 nights at the incredible Park Hyatt Maldives Hadahaa with 10,000 points to spare?

Recap

This is a brief example of how to use your points to book flights for less. Stay tuned for the next article which will cover how to transfer your points and book the flights after your find award availability. If you have questions, reach out and I’d be happy to explain anything. Where do you want to go next? Follow my Instagram for suggestions 😉

Evan