Earning points and miles to fly for pennies on the dollar is the easy part. Using those miles wisely is another issue, and finding award availability – seats that you can actually book with those miles – can be the hardest part of all.
Most airlines handle award redemptions completely separate from their cash fares. It’s up to each airline to open up their seats to be redeemed with miles, and some are stingier than others – especially if you're aiming to fly in business or first class. That's why you might see award seats available only on select dates … or none at all.
The biggest trick to finding the flights you want is searching in the right place: Not all websites are created equal when it comes to searching for award availability. And while there are a plethora of award search tools that can speed up the process, nothing beats searching an airline's site manually – whether you want to confirm the flight you want is, indeed, bookable or pinpoint a big redemption before those automated tools catch it.
The best airline websites give you a calendar view to see a month's worth of availability at once, let you filter for nonstop flights, and sort the results to hone in on what you're looking for. And as you'll see, that means it's often best to start searching through a U.S. airline's website … even if that's not whose miles you'll wind up using.
Let's dive a little deeper into the best websites to search for award redemptions on each airline alliance as well as a few third-party websites that can help you find award availability.
Oneworld Award Availability Sites
The Oneworld alliance counts 13 airlines as members, including American Airlines, Alaska Airlines, and several more.
Want to book a cheap American Airlines flight to Hawaii or the Caribbean? Or fly to Tokyo on Japan Airlines? This is where you need to look.
- Alaska Airlines
- American Airlines
- British Airways
- Cathay Pacific
- Finnair
- Iberia
- Japan Airlines
- Malaysia Airlines
- Qantas
- Qatar Airways
- Royal Air Marac
- Royal Jordanian
- Sri Lankan Airlines
Oman Air and Fiji Airways will join this list later this year, as will Hawaiian Airlines after it was acquired by Alaska.
If you're looking for award flights on any of these airlines – whether it's Qatar's world-best Qsuites or Iberia business class for as low as 34,000 Avios one-way to Spain – you'll want to use the following tools to find the availability.
Start Your Search with American Airlines
Hands down, the best way to find award availability on Oneworld airlines is heading straight to American Airlines' website.
You'll be able to start your search with more filters if you start out on its advanced search page. Here, you can choose to search for roundtrip, one-way, or multi-city flights, select the number of passengers, and you can choose to show only “Business / First” class awards under “Options.”
But it's after you hit search where the most powerful features come up. On the list of results, you'll be able to filter by number of stops and airlines. And you can also sort your results by departure time, arrival time, duration, or price.
Best of all, you can open up a calendar search tool: a big reason American's search tool is better than the rest.
Once you open the calendar view, you can also filter by number of stops and class of service. This is the biggest difference between American's search tool and others, including Alaska. While Alaska allows you to view fares on a monthly calendar, you cannot filter the calendar-view results by number of stops, making it difficult to pinpoint award availability on nonstop flights. With American, you'll get a clear view of nonstop availability. And you can easily toggle from month to month, too.
As a general rule of thumb, it's best to first search for availability on the nonstop, long-haul flight you wish to take and then try to find availability on connecting options afterward, if possible. American's ability to filter for nonstop flights on its calendar search makes this task much easier.
You'll also be able to use American's search tool to find award availability on non-alliance partner airlines such as Air Tahiti Nui and Fiji Airways and Hawaiian Airlines – though both are set to join Oneworld soon. American lists all the airlines you'll be able to search for on its website.
Read our step-by-step guide to searching for flights with American Airlines!
Alaska Airlines Isn't Bad
Alaska Airlines has a robust search tool that allows you to view award rates in a calendar view – the most important feature of any award search tool. This allows you to find rates over a range of dates.
But there's a major flaw: With Alaska, you cannot filter this view to only show nonstop flights. While you can filter for class of service, you may sometimes wonder why there are so many dates if you filter for “First Class” when searching for a long-haul route such as flights to Tokyo.
After clicking through, you'll see it: Those dates with “First Class” seats you saw on the calendar may only have availability in first class on a short domestic hop. You can pick out mixed-cabin awards on Alaska's list of fares by an airplane seat icon next to the rate.
If you click on that icon, you'll most often see that it is just a short connecting flight in domestic first class and the long-haul in coach. Do not book these awards: It's a horrendous deal.
Nonetheless, Alaska's search results list does allow you to filter and sort for number of stops, airlines, nearby airports, departure and arrival times, duration, and price. You'll just want to watch out for mixed-cabin awards on connecting itineraries and the fact that you can't filter for nonstop flights in calendar view means Alaska's search tool is best used to confirm availability after finding it on American's website.
British Airways: The Best for Confirming Award Space
British Airways' website won't win any awards for being user-friendly.
First, you need to create an account and log in to be able to search – an annoying step that's not required with every airline program. You can only view award rates for exact dates and you'll only get a week-long view to choose other dates.
But British Airways has its place. It's most useful to confirm space on the exact dates where you found availability on American or elsewhere, just to make sure it can be booked by another partner airline.
Another good use of British Airways' search is to search for availability on Oneworld airlines like Qatar Airways or Iberia at the very end of the schedule – flights that are more than 330 days in advance. You won't be able to search this final month of the schedule on AA's site and some airlines have been throttling award space for U.S. airline programs, like American.
If you are looking for award space on British Airways flights in business or first class, British Airways does have a handy Reward Flight Finder where you can search for up to one full year to find award availability on flights operated by British Airways. One important note is that you'll need to start typing in the city name rather than the airport code for some cities – for example, London instead of LHR.
If you choose to search for full-year availability, you'll see a bar graph showing the availability throughout the year and a calendar with dates you can choose below that.
But this tool will only work for nonstop flights operated by British Airways so it's a bit limited in its scope. Plus, you'll always get hit with extremely high cash fees when redeeming points and miles for British Airways flights. Still, if you're dead set on flying British Airways First Class, this is a great way to find the availability and it's a lot cheaper than booking a first class ticket with cash.
SkyTeam Award Availability Sites
Delta, Air France, and KLM are the top three airlines in the SkyTeam alliance. In total, you can choose between almost 20 SkyTeam airlines.
- Aerolíneas Argentinas
- Aeroméxico
- Air Europa
- Air France
- China Airlines
- China Eastern
- Delta
- Garuda Indonesia
- ITA Airways
- Kenya Airways
- KLM
- Korean Air
- Middle East Airlines
- Scandinavian Airlines (SAS)
- Saudia
- TAROM
- Vietnam Airlines
- Virgin Atlantic
- Xiamen Air
Looking to fly Delta One or Air France business class? You'll want to use the right tools to find the availability. Here are some of the best.
Delta: Easy to Use
Delta SkyMiles get a bad rap … and understandably so. Yet Delta's website has some of the best features you're looking for when searching for award availability. To top it all off, it's incredibly easy to use.
Simply start your search from the homepage and select “Shop with Miles.” In general, Delta reserves its lowest SkyMiles rates for roundtrip purchases so you'll often need to search roundtrip to find the best deals on Delta-operated flights.
You can also expand the “Advanced Search” options to include nearby airports and search for a specific class of service. The ability to filter out basic economy fares and only search for main cabin tickets is a great feature since Delta is the only major U.S. airline to sell basic economy award tickets.
If you're looking for long-haul business class flights, regardless of which airline you want to fly, choose “Delta One.” While the rates for business class flights using SkyMiles are usually through the roof, using its search tool can be a good way to pinpoint which dates are available using miles from other SkyTeam partners like Virgin Atlantic or Air France/KLM.
Once you've started your initial search, you'll be able to toggle between a “Flexible Dates” view, which shows a grid of availability within seven days of your search date, or a “Price Calendar” view, which shows a full month of travel dates for your desired trip length. We prefer the price calendar view as it allows you to see a wider range of travel dates and you can easily switch between months using the arrows on either side.
Looking for nonstop flights only? One of the keys to finding award availability is to first nail down the long-haul nonstop route and Delta's filter makes this easy to see on its monthly calendar view. You can select to show only nonstop flights on the calendar by selecting that option in the upper right. You can also adjust the trip length to try and find cheaper prices.
You may not want to book a business class flight using your SkyMiles, but Delta's search tool can help you find the availability on partner airlines … which you can then turn to book with another program that has cheaper rates. For instance, Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) flights between the East Coast and Copenhagen (CPH) may cost 100,000 SkyMiles each way (or more).
But Delta's site can help you pinpoint that availability and book for just 40,900 Air France/KLM Flying Blue miles. Depending on the route and travel dates, it can be even less.
Read our step-by-step guide to finding and booking the best Delta SkyMiles deals!
Virgin Atlantic: Still a Solid Way to Book Virgin & Partner Airlines
Virgin Atlantic joined the SkyTeam airline alliance a while back, and while Virgin's search tool has gotten slightly more difficult to use lately, it's still a solid way to find and book flights on partner airlines.
This comes into play whether you're looking to book short Delta flights from 7,500 points each way, hop on an Air France or KLM flight over to Europe for 15,000 points each way, or if you want to fly up front in Delta One business class for just 47,500 miles one-way home from Europe.
Virgin's new website can be a bit wonky and tricky to use. Critically, you'll need to be logged into your Virgin Flying Club account to complete your search. First, head to VirginAtlantic.com and toggle on “Search for Reward Flights.”
It will be easiest to search one-way flights separately rather than your usual roundtrip – and it's often better to book one-ways separately when redeeming miles anyway. Just enter your departure airport and destination and desired travel dates, then hit search.
From here, you'll see a one-week calendar at the top of the search results. Use the arrows on the right or left to see additional dates with award availability.
Once you've found the flight you want, click through to book! Note: Even on other carriers, Virgin still labels business class as “Upper Class.”
If the date you want is unavailable to book with points, you'll likely get an error message and will have to try another date – unless you're booking flights on Virgin itself. Virgin now prices its own flights dynamically, which means (almost) every date should be available to book with Virgin points. The cost may just be incredibly high.
Thrifty Tip: To see a monthlong calendar of award rates for Virgin flights, use the Reward Seat Checker tool. If you want to see a full month's view of flights on partner airlines, you'll need to use this new workaround to pull up Virgin's old price calendar. Getting a month-long view like this is the key to ensure you book at the lowest rate.
Read our full guide to Virgin Atlantic Flying Club!
Use the Flying Blue Search for Air France & KLM Flights
Finally, you may want to turn to Air France-KLM's Flying Blue search tool if you are looking for flights operated by either of these carriers.
To find the lowest rates for Air France or KLM award flights, you'll want to pull up the flexible calendar. This won't work if searching for flights on partner airlines like Delta or Virgin Atlantic – you'll have to enter a specific date for those partner award redemptions.
You'll need to create a Flying Blue account and log in to search with either Air France or KLM. Getting the price calendar to pull up is hit or miss these days. The key is input your departure and arrival cities, and choose your cabin, but leave “passengers” set to “1 adult” and “departure date” blank. Then, click “Search Flights.” It's easiest to search for availability one-way at a time.
If you do this, you'll open up a calendar search tool so long as either Air France or KLM fly the route you're searching. You can then navigate between months and click through on the dates to verify availability. You'll sometimes find that the rates listed on the calendar are incorrect. Plus, there isn't a way to filter for nonstop flights, so this will take a bit of trial and error.
Thrifty Tip: There's also another workaround you can try to pull up a monthlong calendar of award rates, this time by scrolling to the absolute last date on the calendar Air France or KLM will let you select. Then simply hit “Search Flights” and see if the calendar appears. Otherwise, it will bring you right to that date.
Nonetheless, it can be a useful tool as long as you know its limitations. Of course, after you find some dates, you'll want to go back and search those exact dates for the total number of passengers traveling to ensure there are enough seats for your party.
See our step-by-step guide to booking award tickets with Air France/KLM Flying Blue miles!
Star Alliance Award Availability Sites
The Star Alliance is the largest airline alliance in the world, with a total of nearly 30 members including United, Air Canada, and more.
- Aegean
- Air Canada
- Air China
- Air India
- Air New Zealand
- All Nippon Airways (ANA)
- Asiana Airlines
- Austrian Airlines
- Avianca
- Brussels Airlines
- Copa Airlines
- Croatia Airlines
- Egyptair
- Ethiopian Airlines
- Eva Air
- LOT Polish Airlines
- Lufthansa
- Shenzhen Airlines
- Singapore Airlines
- South African Airways
- Swiss International Air Lines
- TAP Air Portugal
- Thai Airways
- Turkish Airlines
- United Airlines
If you're looking to fly on any of these Star Alliance carriers, odds are your best bet is to start your search with United's search tool and then confirm availability with another program such as Air Canada's Aeroplan or the frequent flyer program you're using to book the flight.
One major exception to this rule is Singapore Airlines, which doesn't allow almost any of its partner airlines to book first or business class award tickets on the vast majority of its long-haul routes. That means you'll need to search directly with Singapore Airlines to find award availability if you want to fly Singapore business class or first class.
Search with United First
Whether you want to fly Lufthansa first class, Swiss business class, or Turkish Airlines business class, you'll likely want to start your search for award availability using United's website.
So head to United.com and search for one-way flights. Select “Book with miles” and “flexible dates” and the month you'd like to travel. Choose the exact number of passengers you want to fly – if you're looking for business class flights with a companion but only search for one passenger, these results could lead you astray.
If you're searching for business class flights, select “Business” from the drop-down menu. Then, hit “Find flights.”
You'll see a month's worth of fares. Look for dates at 88,000 miles each way. After an increase last year, United now typically charges 88,000 miles each way for a business class ticket to Europe on a partner airline like TAP Air Portugal.
But it's not that price we care about – it's the fact that the flight is there, period. These exact same results will generally be available to book through partner airlines too, often for fewer points.
Note: United's new monthly calendar search won't update when you filter for nonstop flights. Instead, this filter only applies to the flights listed below the calendar. This means, you'll now need to search day-by-day to pinpoint nonstop availability when searching on United's website.
Copy down the dates and details of the flight you just found through United. Then, you can take them over to a partner airlines site and book through that airline.
Finding “saver award” space is key as it is the only award space that can be booked by partner airlines. United includes this language for economy awards but doesn't explicitly state this for business or first class – you'll need to instead look for the fare code in parenthesis. For Star Alliance airlines, (I) is a saver fare in business class, and (O) is saver fare in first class.
Air Canada Aeroplan
Another great tool for verifying award availability on Star Alliance carriers is Air Canada's Aeroplan award search. You can simply search directly from the homepage by selecting “Book with Aeroplan points.”
Unfortunately, you can't pull up a monthly calendar view with Aeroplan's search, but it is a good way to cross-check availability on exact dates that you found on United's site. Plus, you'll have several filters and sorting options available on the list of results.
While Aeroplan doesn't require you to log in to search, it does require you to log in to see prices on its five-day calendar displayed above the search results. This seems to be hit or miss if it actually works though – it may only be available for Air Canada-operated flights.
Read our guide to booking award tickets through Air Canada Aeroplan!
Other Sites & Tools That Help You Find Award Availability
There are also a handful of third-party websites dedicated to helping you find award space. Some give you free trials to test out their services, but you'll often need to pay a subscription fee to get the most useful information.
We've compiled a list of 10 of the best award search tools on the market right now, including sites like PointsYeah, Point.Me, Seats.aero, and more.
Flexible with travel dates and destinations? Just looking to use your points and miles to go wherever there is a deal? We may be biased, but we think the best service is Thrifty Traveler Premium.
With a Thrifty Traveler Premium membership, you'll not only get flight deal alerts, but also award availability alerts across all airlines and alliances. And we only send deals that have good availability and can be booked for at least two passengers.
For example, our members recently received an alert for a ton of availability flying Qatar's Qsuites all the way down to Cape Town, South Africa.
Some flights are harder to find than others – and there's no greater unicorn award than this deal we unearthed for two passengers to Etihad's First Class Apartment to or from the U.S.
Alerts also include a rough estimate of the taxes and fees as well as detailed booking instructions and specific dates with availability. With all that information, you don't need to be an expert in points and miles to book these deals.
This rare award availability is long gone – get the next deal in your inbox with Thrifty Traveler Premium!
Bottom Line
Searching for award availability can be a daunting task. But if you use the correct tools and know where to search, you'll have a much easier time pinpointing the dates where you can book those elusive “saver” award seats.