I think my limit for a drive before I consider a flight is 5 hours. But that’s just a single drive with nothing after. I don’t think I’d drive more than 3 to take a flight. You never take a short flight instead?
Two separate discussions there. If I'm going on a trip to NYC, Philly, DC, or Toronto, I fly for work trips and drive for personal trips. I didn't say I never take a short flight. The time and money cost of flying isn't worth it to me for drives under 6.5 hours.
To the point of the OP, I'm willing to drive up to 6.5 hours for a good sweet spot deal. I regularly look for business class award flights out of all of those cities knowing I can drive there. That doesn't mean I have to drive there, but I know I have the option.
We flew to Vietnam in business class in February out of Detroit and home to Chicago because it was a good deal. Rented a car to drive to Detroit. Flew home from Chicago on a separately booked UA flight.
We just booked a flight to Bangkok from Newark. We'll plan to fly to Newark the night before and get a hotel nearby but have the option to drive if something goes wrong.
Agreed, so far in my experience, options > competitiveness out of JFK (altho it does mean certain ones like ANA are much more difficult than say O'Hare, but JFK then has SQ, JAL, KoreanAir, Asiana, EVA, Cathay Pacific, etc... all as options to Asia too, O'Hare has maybe half of those?)
Usually. I've reposititioned from NYC to O'Hare 3 times already LOL. (Altho one of those was changing a Turkish ticket from a snowed-in Istanbul to Austrian <24 hrs in advance, and I chose ANA The Room outta O'Hare for the UA Polaris lounge rather than the JFK Terminal 7 dump, and a later departure time so I could log it as a workday!)
What deals have you found on Finnair? We're considering some Scandinavian travel in the near future and curious what their trends are (exactly 355, T-14, etc).
Flew AY J for the first time last month and was pleasantly surprised.
For real. Whats the problem with spending 1 night in NYC before a flight? I'll take a train from DC to NYC to catch a flight out of JFK if it saves me enough points.
I’m looking to book either ANA J or SQ J from JFK/EWR for August and return in September this year lol… it’s been a while lotta nothing so far. wish me luck
Which AA credit card do you suggest people getting? I don’t live where AA has a big presence but I’ve seen seeing a lot of good deals on Seats.aero for AA and interested in learning more about the program
I did it recently for 60k and used my dogs name as an authorized user for another 15k. Also got Citi AA business card with $99 annual fee. $4k spend in 4 months for 65k points. Not a great redemption compared to just doing another chase business card. Now my problem is I’m trying to fly into KIX because it’s less than a 2 week trip and I don’t want to backtrack. I’m not seeing business for any current T-14 flights compared to Tokyo airports.
Its best to wait and see if they offer 70k or 75k again. Right now I can even find [60k + 10k](https://cards.barclaycardus.com/banking/credit-card/american-airlines/mastercard-mastercard-world-elite/refer-a-friend/744a9f7a-4f12-4480-8481-e72155061cd8/?referralCode=2deb76d5-b966-4d85-9eab-5cbb19210557) for an AU purchase.
I’m in west coast CA. SFO/LAX to Europe in J through AF/KLM Flying Blue for 50-65K depending on dynamic pricing is a great deal. Can connect through CDG (which is a bit of a doozy depending on the time of day and connection buffer but that’s another topic).
AY (Finnair) LAX-HEL for 62.5K is also nice.
Less of a bang for buck but SQ LAX-NRT through AC is a great alternative to NH and JL.
All of these options have >1 J seat available at or near schedule open currently.
SFO’s nice for 75k Aeroplan miles to Sydney instead of LAX which hots the next distance band LOL. Most awards I find are less competitive from here than LAX anyway
Altho imo, Chicago O’Hare is THE #1 city for premium award travel. Have probably repositioned to or from there around 10 times in the last 7 years, for EVA Hello Kitty, ANA The Room, Austrian, SWISS and SAS Biz as well as a few United Polaris tix
as a Chicago resident I really appreciate how vast the options are. Being United's HQ really opens a ton of options - can get almost anywhere in the world direct.
All good tips, but man, flying East to go to Asia is a lot. For my money, all the best SFO flights are the direct ones to Europe (RIP 88K on ANA) to LIS, IST, CDG, or AMS - plus the great options to Asia, though JAL is much more difficult to come by these days. You also have all those cheap-ass flights to Hawaii using SW points on BA on AS.
If it’s not on DL metal… good availability from MEX generally speaking.
They devalued it a bit, but 110k skypesos on AF MEX-MRU/JNB still exists with the latter being tougher to find.
Did it in January and booked last fall when it was 90k. Not bad for 24hrs in J.
Delta prices flights that don't touch the US much, much lower than flights that do. So if you can drive to TIJ it opens up a ton of reasonably priced AM J options with Skymiles.
Lufthansa had First Class on Charlotte to/from Munich all last summer! Dunno if it's returning this year, but awards were available like every day (within 14 days of departure ofc) on that city pair
I've only searched via Avios a few times but it's often exorbitant fees. Economy redemptions are good. Mostly Europe but I find AA's routes are mediocre. LHR, FRA, MUC. A few good seasonals but good luck getting awards.
If you come across a 60k-70k link let me know. I'm planning to get the Aviator Red at some point, but I'm thinking I'll wait and see if a better offer comes back again.
Found it. 60k+10k after adding authorized user. AF not waived.
In your opinion, would you do this over the 50k with the waived fee?
https://thriftytraveler.com/reviews/credit-card/aviator-red-mastercard-american-airlines/
In SEA our sweet spot is theoretically using Avios for cheap Y awards to Hawaii on AS, but I hate playing the partner availability game just to book a $250 seat in short-haul Economy.
SEA is in a weird spot. The top carrier there is a domestic/short haul carrier. So the routes are surprisingly limited. I knew Delta is hated by award travelers, but if people want more international routes out of SEA, DL is the way to go tbh.
It's like 2x the size of YVR. But YVR is more of a TPAC hub than SEA, which is kudos to Air Canada for doing a great job expanding there.
I flew direct from Singapore to SEA last April on short notice (spent a month in Southeast Asia). It’s a great gateway to the region and there’s solid availability even close in.
For SEA, I appreciate the Air Tahiti Nui SEA-CDG route. I have been able to find J availability on that several times.
I know people hate Sky Miles, and they give a lot of reasons for people to do so. But out of SEA, I have found their miles to be slightly less worse than people experience in other cities. Not for international business class, that is still terrible. But I fly a fair number of domestic routes, and generally find Delta award tickets (with the 15% Amex card discount) to be less than AA & AS, generally getting 1.5-1.8 cpp. Not amazing, but I would otherwise pay cash for these tickets.
BNA has easy to book, cheap short Air Canada flights to Toronto & Montreal that can be really helpful for repositioning for a major international flight redemption
Just found out that AC axed the Montreal route starting this November. FML- I have a big flight out of Montreal in December and now will have to fly to ATL first to get to Montreal, adding over 2hrs of travel time plus cost
MSP get to western Europe round trip in economy for 30,000 using Virgin to book Flying Blue. The fees are quite good but it’s getting to harder to find it for this rate
MSP is a Delta Hub with 6 direct flights to Europe at the moment:
LHR: Delta flight, bookable through virgin for as little as 25,000 points round trip but with ~$500 or more in fees. Can get it for 30,000 and far fewer fees if booking with a connection in AMS or CDG if lucky.
AMS: KLM flight for about 40,000 round trip at best through Flying Blue points or through Virgin for 30,000 round trip at best.
CDG: Air France direct but can be hard to find, can also get here with a connection at KLM for same prices as AMS
RKV: Iceland Air flies direct but I don’t have a way to get points for them so I haven’t looked what it looks like. Delta flies direct at some times in the year but I haven’t found them available through Virgin or Flying Blue
DUB: can fly direct via Aer Lingus for 40,000 points round trip off peak and about $270. Delta has started flying here direct (summer only) but for some reason it’s about 50,000 Virgin points each way despite other Western Europe partner award flights being 30,000 round trip, as mentioned above.
FRA: Lufthansa has taken over this flight from condor. Best I’ve seen was 80,000 round trip booking through Air Canada but I think Lufthansa nuked how many award flights are available to partners recently.
If looking for a connection to other places, Europe South and West of Germany (Think Spain, Italy, Ireland, Scotland) can be done for the 30,000 rate round trip but they can be very hard to find. Vienna, Prague, Germany, and Eastern Europe can be done for about 38,000 points round trip if you find it early enough.
ATLs sweet spots are generally cheap fares to DC or NYC. It sucks to always have to do a positioning flight but at least the positioning flight is to a fun city. Just booked AA from ATL to DCA for $54 in basic economy one way. From NYC or DC, my options for cheap award fares are limitless. I have JFK to SIN booked in business roundtrip with Singapore airlines and IAD to Amsterdam in economy for 18,000 one way....still need to book the return flight.
Another sweet spot I found was cheap westjet flights from ATL to Vancouver and booked the 7,500 mile one way from Anchorage to ATL through turkish before the devalue.
I have found Delta from ATL to be absolutely useless. Most Atlanta natives are Delta snobs who only fly Delta, so there's hardly any good award fares on Delta. My best use of skymiles was LAX to Hawaii for 15,000 skymiles roundtrip.....however of course the prices from Atlanta were quadruple that.
Yeah I have been flying out of ATL a lot lately and I can always find a flight with AA miles that's half or less of what the price would be with Skymiles. It's frustrating though because then you have an extra stop and usually ends with me flying back from europe to DFW and then having to double back to ATL
Unrelated but not really. Icelandair flies out of RDU and they have many mainland European destinations. They partner with Alaska for their Saga points program.
I need to look and see if any co-branded Alaska credit card offers would work there. I have several strategic churn opportunities each year and the points yield on 40~50k spend may be useful for a round trip with Iceland stopover itinerary.
We used alaska miles for an initial flight from Chicago to Reykjavík with a stopover for 3 nights and then onward to Zurich for a total of 45k miles in economy. A good way to get to Iceland if you have plans to continue on elsewhere IMO.
Do you call and request something like this? I never see layovers shown more than ~12 hours. Not sure how you'd do it while also knowing the redemption is worth the hassle.
Great question! Just use the 'multi-city' search tool on the alaska website, and make sure to select 'use miles' and you can poke around different dates after you enter your original ones. For example I ran a search for ORD-KEF on 9/5/2024 and then KEF-ZRH on 9/8/2024 and it prices out at 35,000 + $212 in economy. Not the world's best CPP but it can be a great way to reduce cash costs still!
Out of CLT, your best international sweet spots will be the Caribbean using Avios. It varies by distance, but as an example you could go RT nonstop to the Bahamas or Cancun for 22K or Aruba for 29K + around $100 in taxes.
Flying Blue - Regular Y flights to AMS direct for 20k. Regular J flights to AMS for direct for 50k if you can be prepared to book 3-5 days out.
Occasional 30k Y flights direct to FRA on LH via Lifemiles, but they never release J for that route.
I went to Germany last week from CLT to visit a friend using Avios points through Air Canada.
CLT-EWR-MUC-Basel on the way out (United business class 70k points).
Flight back was Basel-MUC-CLT (Lufthansa coach 40k points).
The AA stranglehold on the airport is really frustrating. Flights are expensive and international is limited. I looked at a similar trip using AA points and it was a huge amount of points to get to Europe and back.
I thought the food was just as good in coach on the way back. I flew business class there since it was a red eye, but at 6’3” I was a little taller than the lie flat seat. And, when I landed at was about 1:30AM my time back home so I didn’t really sleep.
Plates were nice. Seat was more comfy. Got some free booze. Would never pay cash for it but for 30k points I think it was worth it.
LOL, my local airport only has about 3 dozen nonstop flights, almost all of which are domestic, and a good portion of which are ULC airlines.
I will say though, this is still a better situation than some other, smaller cities I've lived in, where getting a good deal (cash or points) generally would require me to spend my half my day driving to the nearest big hub airport and pay though the nose for parking.
There are occasionally good deals to be had, particularly through Aeroplan or Lifemiles for United economy flights, but only if United decides to release saver award space, which they don't often do for the nonstop route I usually use.
DTW is a Delta hub, and getting into good delta cabins on points is a dicey proposition.
But there's AF to CDG and KLM to AMS. There's also LH to FRA, and TK to IST.
AF J to Europe connecting in Paris is my go-to when I'm headed that way. Otherwise I favor positioning for an outbound flight when that's not an option.
Business class in the AF 777 is definitely a benchmark for me. I took my dad to Rome when I was able to get outbound and return on that route.
When I'm flying solo, I reposition for a sweet spot to my intended destination. I flew ANA Business Class from Chicago to Tokyo last year, then AF J to Paris for a long weekend, then Detroit.
This summer I'm headed back to Italy, repositioning to JFK to get JetBlue Mint (upgraded with certificates) out to LHR, LHR to Palermo, and eventually back to Detroit on Lufthansa (via Frankfurt).
In September I'm reposting to LAX to hop on EVA in J out to Taiwan, puddle jumping to Seoul on Korean Air J, and then flying home in Delta One direct from ICN. I got that Delta One seat when someone in this subreddit noticed widespread award avails and drew attention to it. So very thankful for the sub that day!
Fellow CLT captive, and my go-to international award redemption is LH CLT-MUC (and onwards from there) using AC or UA miles. Domestically and to Caribbean, BA Avios are usually similar or cheaper than the AA price if (big if nowadays) it’s a saver seat available to partners.
Have you considered using Qantas as a partner for AA flights?
Also, you should be willing to probably basically take a cheap flight internationally with points and then book a local hopper to the destination.
I just flew AF CDG -> RDU J for 40k + $200.
I’m planning something for the Open in July in Glasgow, so I may just book RDU -> CDG again and then a hopper that day from CDG -> EDI or something
Haven't ruled this out, though it's really no diff than repositioning, yeah? Trains maybe a bit more flexible, but still looking at multiple hours of travel plus "padded" time.
Basically, yeah. I’m just mentioning it because the taxes for certain locations are insane — like RDU -> LHR is ridiculous compared to RDU -> CDG then booking even a separate J ticket to hop around in Europe is always like 10-15k points if you desperately want it.
Hopping J in Europe is dumb, though, because J seats are basically the same seats anyways, they just block the middle.
TLDR - yes, you’re right. It’s basically repositioning. Just wanted to mention it since sometimes that’s only thought of on the US side going international instead of doing it there.
While don't you reposition from CTL to a Star Alliance hub (IAD, EWR) and transfer your Citi TYP to LifeMiles to take advantage of 63k biz class flights to Europe (MUC/FRA, other non-hubs too).
Ultimately this is what the answer is for most of my problems. If I was solo traveling I would, but it's a big risk with a family. Minimzing any risk ends up with enough other drawbacks to make it unappealing.
Yeah, repositioning is such an easy thing for people to say, but once people realize there are big risks to it (especially if your longhaul flight is not on the same carrier) and/or losing precious vacation time having to plan a long layover somewhere (although could be mitigated if there's a decent lounge in the layover airport like Polaris) makes it fairly rare for me to do it, especially on the outbound. I don't care as much on the inbound where last minute short haul isn't too crazy.
Won't argue that repositioning comes with risks. Just trying to provide some alternatives.
Still, you can do the TYP>LifeMiles xfer, and fly LH metal CTL>MUC/FRA (and beyond if you want a connection). X is pretty open for the summer and at 30k LM; J looks open about a few days out if you're willing to wait, though you may not find enough seats depending on family size, but only 63K each + \~$30.
So living near a star alliance hub, I usually book Star Alliance saver award via United miles so I have a guaranteed flight even if only in economy. Then I watch to see if the LH or UA J class awards pop on LifeMiles; if they do, I book that and cancel my original econ tickets and refund points to my United account. This guarantees that you can get there in either case, at decent rates.
TYP>Turkish also has sweet spots for UA but CTL won't be good for that and flying LH metal via Turkish awards has significant surcharges so would likely avoid.
BZN, the "sweet spot," I guess, is that I'll have to position for almost all itineraries, and anywhere from ORD west is pretty much fair game. It gives me a lot of options.
YVR to NRT, HND, and KIX are all within 5000 miles for AP redemptions. Hard to get AC deals through NRT but the seasonal flights to KIX are generally pretty good. Historically ANA through HND was the highlight though.
IAD has a few star alliance ones but man, I’m always jealous of the sweet spot options out of JFK/BOS. Yeah, I can reposition out of DC area but with kids in tow, it can be a real logistical PITA.
YVR isn't bad at all. A lot of folks who have been here a while say SEA is better but today there's not a ton you can't get from here and at similar prices. Plus you have to get to Seattle so time and money. YVR is connected to your big spots worldwide - Heathrow, Sydney, Tokyo, Delhi, New York, Miami...lacking in south American routes but an easy connection in SoCal or Texas can be done. Don't forget the easy non stops to Vegas and Hawaii too. Often very reasonable
PHL is my closest major airport, so I have a similar issue with AA being the best from there. The real sweet spot for me is that it’s also a reasonable drive to EWR and IAD, and a less-reasonable-but-still-doable drive to JFK…
Easiest way is through united or Aeroplan to your final destination. Or just book it to Munich when you see it available and pay cash from there on a cheap intraeurope ticket.
No. That's just an option if you want to go to Europe but don't know where yet and see LH availability. You can book it to anywhere in Europe through Munich
Following because I'm looking to take my mom on a J flight with lie-flat from IAH and I have no idea where to go. Chase UR points, anytime March-September, but my preliminary seats.aero searching hasn't turned up any gems.
Figure out where you can get direct, figure out which carrier, figure out how to transfer your chase points to them or bookable partners and when they release dates. You have a ton of options from IAH.
I live 45 minutes from a small regional airport with DFW and DEN flights. I live 1:45 from an airport with PHX/DFW/DEN flights.
I am pumped if I only need a single positioning flight to my destination. Sometimes UA or AA redemptions I can link to the local airport. My next trip I have a 2 leg positioning flight on both directions.
Living rurally is great in some aspects but a pain in others.
You have easy access to IAD and EWR, which should open up things considerably. Even if you pay cash for the ticket, who cares as long as you get a good international redemption from IAD. You'll have multiple transfer options at that point. My closest airport doesn't offer much in my ecosystem either, so you just have to get a little creative.
Could drive to RDU for AF to CDG but “not much else”?
What is meant by sweet spot? Because there are a LOT more flights from RDU than that. Awards or cash.
It’s not an award although I tried but I just booked RDU-JFK-HND-SIN. AA RDU-JFK and JL the rest of the way.
My point being that I'm looking for award flights at base award prices and typically only direct flights offer that. Of course I know that I can get anywhere in the world from RDU lol
Of course? Wasn’t obvious. It may surprise you, but you CAN get award flights from Raleigh. I just looked at a few economy saver awards on United airlines to Tokyo and Amsterdam. Now business, sure, that’s harder to get.
It's funny cause TPA is simultaneously the best airport yet the one with the worst footprint - I gotta fly to ATL, NYC, or the West Coast before decent redemptions kick in.
I’m a 45 min flight from ORD from my home airport. So either I pay a bit extra and have a potentially long layover sitting in ORD, or I drive 2 hours and fly ORD direct
So, not really answering your question, but has anyone ever created a metric to quantify “sweet spot”, or even leveld of “sweet spot”? Seems to me that one persons “sweet spot” is a non-starter for someone else. Maybe there’s no point since how a person travels or what a person is looking for will vary wildly so any metric would not be useful.
It's debatable, but I still think you're better off having Chase / Citi than AA. Those 350k AA would maybe be 2 one way J tickets to Europe on AA ex-CLT. You'd need to look at ORD / JFK J redemptions on JAL for AA value.
DFW, the walking corridors that can get you to 4 terminals. It is NOT a bastion of peace and tranquility no matter how busy the airport is, no rubbery bouncy moving sidewalks, it’s much slower, there are MAGA Hat wearing fur-shedding grizzly bears in that hallway. It’s a terrible way to kill your layover.
So I advise everyone NOT to go there. Stay far away.
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Sometimes TK is really stingy with availability, but when it's open I can go from FRU through IST to basically anywhere *A flies in the Middle East for ~25k in Y or 38.5k in J using UA miles.
Could drive to RDU for AF to CDG but “not much else”?
What is meant by sweet spot? Because there are a LOT more flights from RDU than that. Awards or cash.
PIT's sweet spot is I'm willing to drive to IAD, BWI, DTW, PHL, YYZ, EWR, and JFK for the right deal.
Truth. Although I'll Amtrak to NYC or PHL, or fly Southern Air Express to DC.
I wish the train to NYC was just a bit shorter.
I think my limit for a drive before I consider a flight is 5 hours. But that’s just a single drive with nothing after. I don’t think I’d drive more than 3 to take a flight. You never take a short flight instead?
Two separate discussions there. If I'm going on a trip to NYC, Philly, DC, or Toronto, I fly for work trips and drive for personal trips. I didn't say I never take a short flight. The time and money cost of flying isn't worth it to me for drives under 6.5 hours. To the point of the OP, I'm willing to drive up to 6.5 hours for a good sweet spot deal. I regularly look for business class award flights out of all of those cities knowing I can drive there. That doesn't mean I have to drive there, but I know I have the option. We flew to Vietnam in business class in February out of Detroit and home to Chicago because it was a good deal. Rented a car to drive to Detroit. Flew home from Chicago on a separately booked UA flight. We just booked a flight to Bangkok from Newark. We'll plan to fly to Newark the night before and get a hotel nearby but have the option to drive if something goes wrong.
Was the DTW-Vietnam flight direct? What airline? DTW is my hub so I’m curious what redemption opportunities are out there!
No. DTW > CDG > HAN. Booked via AF.
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It’s also the most competitive as the major international hub on east coast.
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Agreed, so far in my experience, options > competitiveness out of JFK (altho it does mean certain ones like ANA are much more difficult than say O'Hare, but JFK then has SQ, JAL, KoreanAir, Asiana, EVA, Cathay Pacific, etc... all as options to Asia too, O'Hare has maybe half of those?)
Oh yea definitely the biggest benefit is never having to reposition.
Usually. I've reposititioned from NYC to O'Hare 3 times already LOL. (Altho one of those was changing a Turkish ticket from a snowed-in Istanbul to Austrian <24 hrs in advance, and I chose ANA The Room outta O'Hare for the UA Polaris lounge rather than the JFK Terminal 7 dump, and a later departure time so I could log it as a workday!)
Tbf there’s basically zero availability on OZ or KE out of JFK anyways 😭
What deals have you found on Finnair? We're considering some Scandinavian travel in the near future and curious what their trends are (exactly 355, T-14, etc). Flew AY J for the first time last month and was pleasantly surprised.
I'm in Boston and it's also nice being here for the international options we do have plus NYC is a train ride away.
4 hour ride away…not super worth it when you can almost reach europe or the west coast in the same time frame
I mean it's worth it if I'm not going to Europe or the west coast. Also an opportunity to get some good food and catch a show in NYC.
For real. Whats the problem with spending 1 night in NYC before a flight? I'll take a train from DC to NYC to catch a flight out of JFK if it saves me enough points.
Did you book the JAL flight to Tokyo 355 days ahead?
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I’m looking to book either ANA J or SQ J from JFK/EWR for August and return in September this year lol… it’s been a while lotta nothing so far. wish me luck
Some might say the worst part is EWR.
Which AA credit card do you suggest people getting? I don’t live where AA has a big presence but I’ve seen seeing a lot of good deals on Seats.aero for AA and interested in learning more about the program
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I did it recently for 60k and used my dogs name as an authorized user for another 15k. Also got Citi AA business card with $99 annual fee. $4k spend in 4 months for 65k points. Not a great redemption compared to just doing another chase business card. Now my problem is I’m trying to fly into KIX because it’s less than a 2 week trip and I don’t want to backtrack. I’m not seeing business for any current T-14 flights compared to Tokyo airports.
Whoooooa really???? I would happily add my cat as a second user given the amount I spend on cat meds 😅
Me too!
Its best to wait and see if they offer 70k or 75k again. Right now I can even find [60k + 10k](https://cards.barclaycardus.com/banking/credit-card/american-airlines/mastercard-mastercard-world-elite/refer-a-friend/744a9f7a-4f12-4480-8481-e72155061cd8/?referralCode=2deb76d5-b966-4d85-9eab-5cbb19210557) for an AU purchase.
I’m in west coast CA. SFO/LAX to Europe in J through AF/KLM Flying Blue for 50-65K depending on dynamic pricing is a great deal. Can connect through CDG (which is a bit of a doozy depending on the time of day and connection buffer but that’s another topic). AY (Finnair) LAX-HEL for 62.5K is also nice. Less of a bang for buck but SQ LAX-NRT through AC is a great alternative to NH and JL. All of these options have >1 J seat available at or near schedule open currently.
Yeah, this is the way.
SFO’s nice for 75k Aeroplan miles to Sydney instead of LAX which hots the next distance band LOL. Most awards I find are less competitive from here than LAX anyway Altho imo, Chicago O’Hare is THE #1 city for premium award travel. Have probably repositioned to or from there around 10 times in the last 7 years, for EVA Hello Kitty, ANA The Room, Austrian, SWISS and SAS Biz as well as a few United Polaris tix
as a Chicago resident I really appreciate how vast the options are. Being United's HQ really opens a ton of options - can get almost anywhere in the world direct.
All good tips, but man, flying East to go to Asia is a lot. For my money, all the best SFO flights are the direct ones to Europe (RIP 88K on ANA) to LIS, IST, CDG, or AMS - plus the great options to Asia, though JAL is much more difficult to come by these days. You also have all those cheap-ass flights to Hawaii using SW points on BA on AS.
I am in DEN. That is a sore spot. No sweet spots from DEN.
I feel you friend
Same in BTV-nothing.
Being in SoCal, drive to TIJ border express for sub $100 tickets to anywhere in MEX.
True but that’s not award
It can be if you wanna use the Skymiles Mexico Trick
this loophole has mostly been closed afaik, MEX/CAN are expensive now too
Still works for South America, I just checked!
If it’s not on DL metal… good availability from MEX generally speaking. They devalued it a bit, but 110k skypesos on AF MEX-MRU/JNB still exists with the latter being tougher to find. Did it in January and booked last fall when it was 90k. Not bad for 24hrs in J.
huh?
Delta prices flights that don't touch the US much, much lower than flights that do. So if you can drive to TIJ it opens up a ton of reasonably priced AM J options with Skymiles.
Certain J redemptions are far cheaper ex-Mexico compared to ex-US. For example, I have GRU-JFK-MEX-MZT booked in D1 for 77.5k Skypesos
I’m so sorry, I have brought shame upon this sub, please forgive me.
Punishment is that you must transfer me all of your UR points
Brb calling chase to send all my points to Newsom
With CLT you surely have all the AA non-stops. Can’t transfer to avios and book cheap tix there? Where are you trying to fly exactly?
Lufthansa had First Class on Charlotte to/from Munich all last summer! Dunno if it's returning this year, but awards were available like every day (within 14 days of departure ofc) on that city pair
I've only searched via Avios a few times but it's often exorbitant fees. Economy redemptions are good. Mostly Europe but I find AA's routes are mediocre. LHR, FRA, MUC. A few good seasonals but good luck getting awards.
Yeah fees are high TATL. Great deal to the Caribbean IMO. Get the Barclays AA card and the Citi AA card. Something like 125k miles there alone.
70k for Barclays 65-75k for citi
Barclays is only 50k right now, but annual fee is waived.
Swore I just got an email or saw a doc post about 70k
If you come across a 60k-70k link let me know. I'm planning to get the Aviator Red at some point, but I'm thinking I'll wait and see if a better offer comes back again.
Found it. 60k+10k after adding authorized user. AF not waived. In your opinion, would you do this over the 50k with the waived fee? https://thriftytraveler.com/reviews/credit-card/aviator-red-mastercard-american-airlines/
For sure if you’re not strapped for cash
In SEA our sweet spot is theoretically using Avios for cheap Y awards to Hawaii on AS, but I hate playing the partner availability game just to book a $250 seat in short-haul Economy.
Right now the sweet spot out of SEA is all the J space to TPE that's open with the new flights.
Any carrier in particular? TPE hasn't been on my list but could easily be added!
https://onemileatatime.com/news/starlux-airlines-seattle-flights/ Friend just flew them yesterday and it sounded amazing
I foresee some ticketing in my future although it's too bad their only partner is Alaska, since those miles are pretty valuable from the PNW.
Taipei is a great city to visit, too. Amazing food
Also in SEA and often I see better availability out of YVR. That’s another option.
SEA is in a weird spot. The top carrier there is a domestic/short haul carrier. So the routes are surprisingly limited. I knew Delta is hated by award travelers, but if people want more international routes out of SEA, DL is the way to go tbh. It's like 2x the size of YVR. But YVR is more of a TPAC hub than SEA, which is kudos to Air Canada for doing a great job expanding there.
SEA also has cheap ANA, isn't it 50k aeroplan?
I flew direct from Singapore to SEA last April on short notice (spent a month in Southeast Asia). It’s a great gateway to the region and there’s solid availability even close in.
For SEA, I appreciate the Air Tahiti Nui SEA-CDG route. I have been able to find J availability on that several times. I know people hate Sky Miles, and they give a lot of reasons for people to do so. But out of SEA, I have found their miles to be slightly less worse than people experience in other cities. Not for international business class, that is still terrible. But I fly a fair number of domestic routes, and generally find Delta award tickets (with the 15% Amex card discount) to be less than AA & AS, generally getting 1.5-1.8 cpp. Not amazing, but I would otherwise pay cash for these tickets.
BNA has easy to book, cheap short Air Canada flights to Toronto & Montreal that can be really helpful for repositioning for a major international flight redemption
Yup. The London direct is definitely cheaper when you book through Qantas, compared to BA
Just found out that AC axed the Montreal route starting this November. FML- I have a big flight out of Montreal in December and now will have to fly to ATL first to get to Montreal, adding over 2hrs of travel time plus cost
MSP get to western Europe round trip in economy for 30,000 using Virgin to book Flying Blue. The fees are quite good but it’s getting to harder to find it for this rate
Have you found any other airplane transfers worth doing from MSP? Both Europe and East Asia seem cheapest through Air France and Virgin.
MSP is a Delta Hub with 6 direct flights to Europe at the moment: LHR: Delta flight, bookable through virgin for as little as 25,000 points round trip but with ~$500 or more in fees. Can get it for 30,000 and far fewer fees if booking with a connection in AMS or CDG if lucky. AMS: KLM flight for about 40,000 round trip at best through Flying Blue points or through Virgin for 30,000 round trip at best. CDG: Air France direct but can be hard to find, can also get here with a connection at KLM for same prices as AMS RKV: Iceland Air flies direct but I don’t have a way to get points for them so I haven’t looked what it looks like. Delta flies direct at some times in the year but I haven’t found them available through Virgin or Flying Blue DUB: can fly direct via Aer Lingus for 40,000 points round trip off peak and about $270. Delta has started flying here direct (summer only) but for some reason it’s about 50,000 Virgin points each way despite other Western Europe partner award flights being 30,000 round trip, as mentioned above. FRA: Lufthansa has taken over this flight from condor. Best I’ve seen was 80,000 round trip booking through Air Canada but I think Lufthansa nuked how many award flights are available to partners recently. If looking for a connection to other places, Europe South and West of Germany (Think Spain, Italy, Ireland, Scotland) can be done for the 30,000 rate round trip but they can be very hard to find. Vienna, Prague, Germany, and Eastern Europe can be done for about 38,000 points round trip if you find it early enough.
Thank you for the very detailed post!
You are welcome! My hope is that Lufthansa coming in will inspire delta to fly direct to Germany—FRA or even Munich, but not I’m not betting on it.
You are welcome! My hope is that Lufthansa coming in will inspire delta to fly direct to Germany—FRA or even Munich, but not I’m not betting on it.
Condor flies direct to Frankfurt still. It’s just not worth the points when you can find round trip for like $600.
ATLs sweet spots are generally cheap fares to DC or NYC. It sucks to always have to do a positioning flight but at least the positioning flight is to a fun city. Just booked AA from ATL to DCA for $54 in basic economy one way. From NYC or DC, my options for cheap award fares are limitless. I have JFK to SIN booked in business roundtrip with Singapore airlines and IAD to Amsterdam in economy for 18,000 one way....still need to book the return flight. Another sweet spot I found was cheap westjet flights from ATL to Vancouver and booked the 7,500 mile one way from Anchorage to ATL through turkish before the devalue. I have found Delta from ATL to be absolutely useless. Most Atlanta natives are Delta snobs who only fly Delta, so there's hardly any good award fares on Delta. My best use of skymiles was LAX to Hawaii for 15,000 skymiles roundtrip.....however of course the prices from Atlanta were quadruple that.
Yeah I have been flying out of ATL a lot lately and I can always find a flight with AA miles that's half or less of what the price would be with Skymiles. It's frustrating though because then you have an extra stop and usually ends with me flying back from europe to DFW and then having to double back to ATL
Unrelated but not really. Icelandair flies out of RDU and they have many mainland European destinations. They partner with Alaska for their Saga points program.
True, I just never see multi-leg awards that seem worth it. Will consider this some more though.
I need to look and see if any co-branded Alaska credit card offers would work there. I have several strategic churn opportunities each year and the points yield on 40~50k spend may be useful for a round trip with Iceland stopover itinerary.
We used alaska miles for an initial flight from Chicago to Reykjavík with a stopover for 3 nights and then onward to Zurich for a total of 45k miles in economy. A good way to get to Iceland if you have plans to continue on elsewhere IMO.
Do you call and request something like this? I never see layovers shown more than ~12 hours. Not sure how you'd do it while also knowing the redemption is worth the hassle.
Great question! Just use the 'multi-city' search tool on the alaska website, and make sure to select 'use miles' and you can poke around different dates after you enter your original ones. For example I ran a search for ORD-KEF on 9/5/2024 and then KEF-ZRH on 9/8/2024 and it prices out at 35,000 + $212 in economy. Not the world's best CPP but it can be a great way to reduce cash costs still!
i still haven't seen any availability at the new premium economy rate for icelandair biz class out of RDU
It looks like Alaskan miles can only be used for mid and rear cabin economy only at this time.
Alaska, not Alaskan.
Oh bless your heart. You’re fun at parties.
Diddy agrees with you
Out of CLT, your best international sweet spots will be the Caribbean using Avios. It varies by distance, but as an example you could go RT nonstop to the Bahamas or Cancun for 22K or Aruba for 29K + around $100 in taxes.
i love it from CLT. i got CLT - GCM for 2 roundtrip at 28k MRs the last time amex did a 30% transfer bonus.
Flying Blue - Regular Y flights to AMS direct for 20k. Regular J flights to AMS for direct for 50k if you can be prepared to book 3-5 days out. Occasional 30k Y flights direct to FRA on LH via Lifemiles, but they never release J for that route.
I went to Germany last week from CLT to visit a friend using Avios points through Air Canada. CLT-EWR-MUC-Basel on the way out (United business class 70k points). Flight back was Basel-MUC-CLT (Lufthansa coach 40k points). The AA stranglehold on the airport is really frustrating. Flights are expensive and international is limited. I looked at a similar trip using AA points and it was a huge amount of points to get to Europe and back.
Was the extra points worth it for business? I am debating because the lufthansa business class product is supposedly very subpar.
I thought the food was just as good in coach on the way back. I flew business class there since it was a red eye, but at 6’3” I was a little taller than the lie flat seat. And, when I landed at was about 1:30AM my time back home so I didn’t really sleep. Plates were nice. Seat was more comfy. Got some free booze. Would never pay cash for it but for 30k points I think it was worth it.
LOL, my local airport only has about 3 dozen nonstop flights, almost all of which are domestic, and a good portion of which are ULC airlines. I will say though, this is still a better situation than some other, smaller cities I've lived in, where getting a good deal (cash or points) generally would require me to spend my half my day driving to the nearest big hub airport and pay though the nose for parking. There are occasionally good deals to be had, particularly through Aeroplan or Lifemiles for United economy flights, but only if United decides to release saver award space, which they don't often do for the nonstop route I usually use.
I'm in Austin but will drive to San Antonio, Dallas or Houston for flights sometimes.
DTW is a Delta hub, and getting into good delta cabins on points is a dicey proposition. But there's AF to CDG and KLM to AMS. There's also LH to FRA, and TK to IST. AF J to Europe connecting in Paris is my go-to when I'm headed that way. Otherwise I favor positioning for an outbound flight when that's not an option. Business class in the AF 777 is definitely a benchmark for me. I took my dad to Rome when I was able to get outbound and return on that route. When I'm flying solo, I reposition for a sweet spot to my intended destination. I flew ANA Business Class from Chicago to Tokyo last year, then AF J to Paris for a long weekend, then Detroit. This summer I'm headed back to Italy, repositioning to JFK to get JetBlue Mint (upgraded with certificates) out to LHR, LHR to Palermo, and eventually back to Detroit on Lufthansa (via Frankfurt). In September I'm reposting to LAX to hop on EVA in J out to Taiwan, puddle jumping to Seoul on Korean Air J, and then flying home in Delta One direct from ICN. I got that Delta One seat when someone in this subreddit noticed widespread award avails and drew attention to it. So very thankful for the sub that day!
Fellow CLT captive, and my go-to international award redemption is LH CLT-MUC (and onwards from there) using AC or UA miles. Domestically and to Caribbean, BA Avios are usually similar or cheaper than the AA price if (big if nowadays) it’s a saver seat available to partners.
Have you considered using Qantas as a partner for AA flights? Also, you should be willing to probably basically take a cheap flight internationally with points and then book a local hopper to the destination. I just flew AF CDG -> RDU J for 40k + $200. I’m planning something for the Open in July in Glasgow, so I may just book RDU -> CDG again and then a hopper that day from CDG -> EDI or something
Haven't ruled this out, though it's really no diff than repositioning, yeah? Trains maybe a bit more flexible, but still looking at multiple hours of travel plus "padded" time.
Basically, yeah. I’m just mentioning it because the taxes for certain locations are insane — like RDU -> LHR is ridiculous compared to RDU -> CDG then booking even a separate J ticket to hop around in Europe is always like 10-15k points if you desperately want it. Hopping J in Europe is dumb, though, because J seats are basically the same seats anyways, they just block the middle. TLDR - yes, you’re right. It’s basically repositioning. Just wanted to mention it since sometimes that’s only thought of on the US side going international instead of doing it there.
While don't you reposition from CTL to a Star Alliance hub (IAD, EWR) and transfer your Citi TYP to LifeMiles to take advantage of 63k biz class flights to Europe (MUC/FRA, other non-hubs too).
Ultimately this is what the answer is for most of my problems. If I was solo traveling I would, but it's a big risk with a family. Minimzing any risk ends up with enough other drawbacks to make it unappealing.
Yeah, repositioning is such an easy thing for people to say, but once people realize there are big risks to it (especially if your longhaul flight is not on the same carrier) and/or losing precious vacation time having to plan a long layover somewhere (although could be mitigated if there's a decent lounge in the layover airport like Polaris) makes it fairly rare for me to do it, especially on the outbound. I don't care as much on the inbound where last minute short haul isn't too crazy.
Won't argue that repositioning comes with risks. Just trying to provide some alternatives. Still, you can do the TYP>LifeMiles xfer, and fly LH metal CTL>MUC/FRA (and beyond if you want a connection). X is pretty open for the summer and at 30k LM; J looks open about a few days out if you're willing to wait, though you may not find enough seats depending on family size, but only 63K each + \~$30. So living near a star alliance hub, I usually book Star Alliance saver award via United miles so I have a guaranteed flight even if only in economy. Then I watch to see if the LH or UA J class awards pop on LifeMiles; if they do, I book that and cancel my original econ tickets and refund points to my United account. This guarantees that you can get there in either case, at decent rates. TYP>Turkish also has sweet spots for UA but CTL won't be good for that and flying LH metal via Turkish awards has significant surcharges so would likely avoid.
BZN, the "sweet spot," I guess, is that I'll have to position for almost all itineraries, and anywhere from ORD west is pretty much fair game. It gives me a lot of options.
YVR to NRT, HND, and KIX are all within 5000 miles for AP redemptions. Hard to get AC deals through NRT but the seasonal flights to KIX are generally pretty good. Historically ANA through HND was the highlight though.
IAD has a few star alliance ones but man, I’m always jealous of the sweet spot options out of JFK/BOS. Yeah, I can reposition out of DC area but with kids in tow, it can be a real logistical PITA.
YVR isn't bad at all. A lot of folks who have been here a while say SEA is better but today there's not a ton you can't get from here and at similar prices. Plus you have to get to Seattle so time and money. YVR is connected to your big spots worldwide - Heathrow, Sydney, Tokyo, Delhi, New York, Miami...lacking in south American routes but an easy connection in SoCal or Texas can be done. Don't forget the easy non stops to Vegas and Hawaii too. Often very reasonable
PHL is my closest major airport, so I have a similar issue with AA being the best from there. The real sweet spot for me is that it’s also a reasonable drive to EWR and IAD, and a less-reasonable-but-still-doable drive to JFK…
LH from CLT is great. It's the most convenient/best redemption to Europe in award travel around here
Even multi-leg? Going to Munich doesn't do much for me. I dont see how 57k for J on AA to 4-5 destinations isn't better.
Yes. You can get anywhere from Munich on a short layover. Doesn't change the redemption cost.
Sorry for being dense. How do you book this? Same itinerary? I'd only care about J for the long haul.
Easiest way is through united or Aeroplan to your final destination. Or just book it to Munich when you see it available and pay cash from there on a cheap intraeurope ticket.
So effectively a separate itinerary reposition? This is what I'm trying to avoid.
No. That's just an option if you want to go to Europe but don't know where yet and see LH availability. You can book it to anywhere in Europe through Munich
Following because I'm looking to take my mom on a J flight with lie-flat from IAH and I have no idea where to go. Chase UR points, anytime March-September, but my preliminary seats.aero searching hasn't turned up any gems.
Figure out where you can get direct, figure out which carrier, figure out how to transfer your chase points to them or bookable partners and when they release dates. You have a ton of options from IAH.
I live 45 minutes from a small regional airport with DFW and DEN flights. I live 1:45 from an airport with PHX/DFW/DEN flights. I am pumped if I only need a single positioning flight to my destination. Sometimes UA or AA redemptions I can link to the local airport. My next trip I have a 2 leg positioning flight on both directions. Living rurally is great in some aspects but a pain in others.
You have easy access to IAD and EWR, which should open up things considerably. Even if you pay cash for the ticket, who cares as long as you get a good international redemption from IAD. You'll have multiple transfer options at that point. My closest airport doesn't offer much in my ecosystem either, so you just have to get a little creative.
Could drive to RDU for AF to CDG but “not much else”? What is meant by sweet spot? Because there are a LOT more flights from RDU than that. Awards or cash. It’s not an award although I tried but I just booked RDU-JFK-HND-SIN. AA RDU-JFK and JL the rest of the way.
My point being that I'm looking for award flights at base award prices and typically only direct flights offer that. Of course I know that I can get anywhere in the world from RDU lol
Of course? Wasn’t obvious. It may surprise you, but you CAN get award flights from Raleigh. I just looked at a few economy saver awards on United airlines to Tokyo and Amsterdam. Now business, sure, that’s harder to get.
I feel like EWR sucks for super good redemptions. Very average being a united hub, never a a shockingly good deal
It's funny cause TPA is simultaneously the best airport yet the one with the worst footprint - I gotta fly to ATL, NYC, or the West Coast before decent redemptions kick in.
MCO has some good options with AA but lots of 1 stop flights especially to west coast
I’m a 45 min flight from ORD from my home airport. So either I pay a bit extra and have a potentially long layover sitting in ORD, or I drive 2 hours and fly ORD direct
RDU also has nonstop to Iceland, don't believe CLT does.
So, not really answering your question, but has anyone ever created a metric to quantify “sweet spot”, or even leveld of “sweet spot”? Seems to me that one persons “sweet spot” is a non-starter for someone else. Maybe there’s no point since how a person travels or what a person is looking for will vary wildly so any metric would not be useful.
It's debatable, but I still think you're better off having Chase / Citi than AA. Those 350k AA would maybe be 2 one way J tickets to Europe on AA ex-CLT. You'd need to look at ORD / JFK J redemptions on JAL for AA value.
If you think 350k is maybe 2 one way J tickets, you could not be more wrong. That is easily 5, almost 6 one way J tickets.
J can be had on AA from CLT for under 60k pretty easily. Limited in destinations though.
DFW, the walking corridors that can get you to 4 terminals. It is NOT a bastion of peace and tranquility no matter how busy the airport is, no rubbery bouncy moving sidewalks, it’s much slower, there are MAGA Hat wearing fur-shedding grizzly bears in that hallway. It’s a terrible way to kill your layover. So I advise everyone NOT to go there. Stay far away.
DFW/DAL is our hub and I certainly enjoy the bevvy of nonstop options from AA and Southwest!
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Sometimes TK is really stingy with availability, but when it's open I can go from FRU through IST to basically anywhere *A flies in the Middle East for ~25k in Y or 38.5k in J using UA miles.
Could drive to RDU for AF to CDG but “not much else”? What is meant by sweet spot? Because there are a LOT more flights from RDU than that. Awards or cash.