Buying a cheap business class plane ticket with your miles is both ridiculously easy and incredibly complicated. Award tickets, as miles-based tickets are called, are getting harder and harder to find, despite the variety of online search tools like Award Logic, PointsYeah, Point.me and others. But each of those services has drawbacks, be it long search times, limited selection of airline or bank-based transferable programs, or only a few days to be searched at once. Therefore, it pays to understand which airlines have the best rewards programs to be used for your upcoming trip.
As with anything travel-related, a lot of what makes an airline reward program ‘good’ is in the eye of the beholder. Some people appreciate a lot of flight options even if it costs more miles. Other people want to maximize the use of their points and treat them like a currency, especially since transferable point systems have so many transfer partner options (spoiler alert: I fall into the latter category). In my years booking flights for people I have found a few programs have stood out from the rest, especially for specific uses. I’ll outline them below with specific reference to the airline alliances to which they are connected.
Air Canada Aeroplan: This is probably my favorite program to use to book flights for my clients and myself. It is a good balance between award ticket availability, mileage cost of the flights, and the ease with which you can change or cancel tickets. Air Canada miles can be ‘earned’ directly with the Aeroplan credit card or by transferring in from Chase, American Express, and other bank currencies. There are some great deals to be had on Star Alliance carriers to/from Europe – 70k miles one-way with limited fees for a business class seat is a pretty good deal these days. And if you want to travel farther, you can sometimes get deals for 87.5k miles one-way to Asia or Australia. Additionally, you can often get good deals on non-Star Alliance partners like Emirates and Etihad.
Air France / KLM Flying Blue: This is my favorite SkyTeam airline to use in booking flights for clients. While their dynamic pricing model can be ridiculously expensive (over 500k one-way in business class) they also can have really cheap prices (50k one-way!) and often have transfer bonuses from bank currencies. Much like Air Canada, they can be transferred from most bank currencies. Additionally, they are very helpful for buying Virgin Atlantic tickets without the high taxes when flying through London. Finally, there are some interesting partnerships they have for particular routes that are useful: Air Europa to Spain, Kenya Airways to Nairobi, and China Airlines to Taipei. I always like to have them in my back pocket.
Cathay Pacific Asia Miles: Despite fewer bank currencies transfering to this program, I have consistently used it to book OneWorld partner fares like British Airways flights to/from Europe for my clients. Even though they recently increased their award ticket prices they still require fewer points than using British Airways’ own currency and they do not pass on nearly as many of the taxes/fees associated with flying via London (imagine $250 vs. $900 per ticket!). Additionally, if you want to fly to Japan, Asia Miles can search 11-12 months in advance or 1-2 weeks in advance to guarantee you business class seats on Japan Airlines.
All Nippon Airlines (ANA) Mileage Club: If you are trying to minimize your use of miles across the globe, ANA is the place for you. They are a transfer partner only of American Express Membership Rewards and are a great resource for round-trip flights to/from Europe (only 88k miles for the round-trip ticket!). The real amazing aspect of this program, however, is its round-the-world (RTW) opportunity. As long as you follow the program’s rules (ex: fly in one direction around the world, not too many stops in certain places, etc.) you can get up to 12 business class flights for between 125k-170k miles per person. Flexibility is key here as the route you want may not be available by the time you call to book (yes, you have to call in and expect wait times of up to 80 minutes each time). Just be warned – Amex points take between 1-2 business days to transfer to ANA.
You might notice that US-based airlines are not in my list of favorite airline reward programs. There is a good reason for that – they are not as reliable in terms of what you can book and for how many points. Delta is the worst offender – charging over 350k miles one-way for a business class ticket to Europe. American Airlines does get an honorable mention for OneWorld partner booking prices (70k miles one-way for business class on Qatar Airways, for example) but it can only search 11 months in advance so many of the tickets you would want to buy are already taken by that point. United has a lot of options for tickets but they are often over 200k miles one-way in business class.
In summary, to know what is ‘good’ for you requires some knowledge of where you want to go. Then, choose a reward program that will help you get there the way you want (many options, cheap prices, etc.). And, of course, if you want help – we at Award Magic are here for you.
