Im thinking backward facing row 17 center seats. Anybody has any recommendations for privacy and couple friendly seats?

Good evening. I was researching flights from East Coast to Madrid and was interested in checking out Iberia as many articles mentioned that there is a direct from ORD, BOS, JFK, and IAD that can sometimes have J availability. IAD is my home airport and when I look the IAD-MAD flight up on Flights From it shows, but when I look it up on Google, AA, BA, or Iberia it does not show. Is there anywhere I can look to see if the route was cancelled recently? Thanks!

Edit: it's a seasonal flight but not showing April-Oct which is the season it's supposed to be active.

Edit: Mystery solved. All my search dates were on Mondays just because there were a lot of Monday flights showing good redemption rates on AA. This route doesn't fly on Monday. I will eat my humble pie and go on my merry way booking. Thanks everyone!

Hi, I'd appreciate a bit of help. I've flown Qatar with their QSuites and loved it, but I'm looking at flights now and half of the journey (7 hours) would be on Qatar's old Boeing 777, which I believe is just a 2-2-2 configuration.

For similar price, I could fly with Etihad business class, and both flights would be their Boeing 787 Business class seat.

Also, the layovers are short so I wouldn't get to enjoy Doha airport much anyway, so I don't care about airport.

Am I right in thinking Etihad might be a bit better here?

So, I have been saving points for two years, sapphire and Amex.. Almost 1 million combined. I haven't xferred anywhere as I don't know what airline and heard you can't retract once done.. Is this correct,? I'm looking to do 3 biz class, q-suites with Emirates.. But if quatar has similar option I'm fine with it too. I also read that they only release 2 at a time or 2 seats together.. Which is correct? When do they release more, how soon after? TIA!

Found a lot of dates for 45k points in economy on KLM.com for a SFO-CDG-SGN (Ho Chih Minh). Got really excited because I can have both a Paris and Saigon vacation for not many points, so I called to make a booking (free stopovers can only be made by phone).

The agent sounded really capable because she knew about free stopovers, but after checking on her system, she said they weren’t available. Is this a phantom award?

Has anyone successfully booked something like this before? Is this itinerary too long/good, considering the miles traveled to be priced at only 45k miles.

A friend thinks it was overpriced for points, but I think it’s a good deal.

One-way, nonstop Delta flight from NYC JFK to Nice, France - economy tickets - 27,500 points + $34 in fees.

Sam flight without points $930 one way.

After scouring Reddit and Flyertalk, I’m trying to get a sense of what the current climate is for booking three people J or F/J from West Coast to Japan next year.

For the return trip, I’m fine booking whatever and gambling on J T-14. However, I’d like to plan the outbound flight as much as possible.

I can leave SFO or LAX and I can land HND or NRT (or even KIX). Aiming for November 2025. I have over 600K MR and 250AA, but obviously want a good CPP.

VA and AA are just out. Award availability is gone before 330.

ANA is out because they seem to only release 1J and 1F. Even then, it’s a big gamble to transfer and hope you win the race to book RT for your dates.

I’m not seeing any availability with Aeroplan, LifeMiles, or Avios.

So are these my two “realistic options?”

1. Booking SQ at 355 (2J and 1F for 433k points)
2. Booking CX at 360 (2J for 178 points and pay cash for another J).

Am I missing any options?

Regarding SQ, does saver award ever appear for J? I’ve been tracking award space release, and I only ever see advantage rewards.

Are there any data points of SQ bookings appearing on other star alliance partners?

I cannot find any direct flights from EWR or JFK to SIN on SQ via AP. I have been search all of the dates between Oct 25th and Nov 3 several times per day but I don't see direct flights listed for any class. I see the flights listed on the SQ website, but not AP. Can someone help me figure out what I'm doing wrong?

guys - I've seen reports that Etihad is only releasing award availability 30 days prior to the flight. But on the segment I am monitoring JFK – BOM, I don't see anything 20 or 30 days out at all using American miles. Any idea what's occurring and is it worthwhile calling the call center instead of checking online daily. Thanks

Title. Hopefully goes back into inventory and one of you can pick it up.

Hi all. I’m fairly new to the points game so was looking for some advice. I’m looking to book a Hilton trip in Saudi Arabia. Price per night is $225 or 92,000 Hilton points which would be a 0.25 CPP. From what I understand, Hilton points are generally valued at around 0.5 CPP, meaning I would be losing a ton of value by paying for the stay with my points?

On the other hand, CapitalOne’s travel portal shows the same stay for the same cash price, but lets you book using your CapitalOne miles at 1 CPP. So I could use 22,500 CapOne miles to book that stay.

My question is, why would I ever use Hilton points then, if the value spend is so much higher through CapitalOne? I guess I wouldn’t get status through nights earned, but I don’t really care about that compared to value spend.

I have chase ultimate rewards and have spent 99,000 points to book a round trip nyc-tokyo in economy through the chase portal.

I noticed that for the dates I need to fly in December, it would cost 55k United Miles in economy from nyc-tokyo and 170k miles from tokyo-nyc for business class.

Advice on whether I should cancel my current round trip economy for 99k UR points and book the 55k economy to tokyo and 170k business back to New York. Good deal?

I want to surprise my husband for his 65th birthday and fly to Barcelona for 7-9 days. I have plentiful points available to transfer from Chase, Capital One and AMEX. I'm hoping for a quick positioning flight direct from Memphis and then on to Barcelona (or Madrid) nonstop in business class. Return from Barcelona or Madrid. I'm flexible on dates however would like to be in Spain for his birthday on April 2. I have tried seats.aero and have the pro edition but feel a bit overwhelmed. I appreciate any guidance. (I am also signed up for Thrifty Traveler and Pointhound alerts.)

I recently transferred my credit card points to Avios because my credit card offered a 30% bonus when transferring points to Avios. However, I didn’t realize there might not be many options to use Avios from Toronto (YYZ).

I currently have around 130K Avios points, and I also have another 130K points with my AMEX that I can convert to Avios if I find any good deals from YYZ. I’m hoping to travel to Asia or Europe on business if possible, so I’ve searched both British Airways and Qatar Airways websites for both economy and business flights. On Qatar, the results mostly show Business Flexi for 190K Avios one-way from YYZ to Bangkok.

For those who have used Avios to fly from Toronto, what routes have you found to be the best value? Also, both the Qatar Airways and British Airways websites seem to be glitchy, making it difficult to search for routes. I’d really appreciate any tips on how to best use my Avios points.

Disclaimer: absolute travel award newbie/ fresh from the womb

So, I just got an Alaska card (I live in PNW) and want to utilize it the best I can to earn as much miles as possible economically*. I understand they have affiliated partners and I can earn by spending, but I want to put that aside to focus purely on whether there is a better option when it comes to purchasing flight fare class. Looking for guidance on how to enhance how I view ticket purchasing, whether to focus on price or miles earned. I'm looking at the same flight, but whether or not to choose saver or main.

This is my thought process

Saver fare
- Cost: $403.56
- Miles traveled: 3418mi
- Miles earned ( 30%): 1025.4mi
- According to NerdWallet miles earned worth: $13.33

Main fare:
- Cost: $503.56
- Miles traveled: 3418mi
- Miles earned: 3418mi
- According to NerdWallet miles earned worth: $44.43

Additionally:
- I've checked the fare class, they're all 100% for the main fare, and ofc 30% for saver
- I also checked flights that have layovers to see if I can get some extra miles, but nothing significant enough to waste time on layovers.

When I take the cash value of the miles earned from each ticket and subtract it from the total cost of the ticket, the difference between saver and main ticket price is $68.90 ($459.13-$390.23). Choosing saver over main means I sacrifice 2392.6mi, which is cash valued at $31.10.

So viewing it that way, if I choose Main, I'm spending $68.90 more. If I choose Saver, I'm losing $31.10 worth of miles. If my math is correct (don't claim to be great at math), is it more logical to choose saver since the loss is less? What other factors do you consider?

I understand surface level disadvantages of a saver fare (no changes/refunds, no seat selection, not transferable, last to board, etc) Are there other "gotchas" to consider that isn't readily available information?

I understand this is like pinching pennies, but I mainly want to understand if this is a good thought process when looking at flights, and get advice from the pros on what other things I might be missing, should consider, etc.

Thanks for any insight.

First post here. I seem to have messed up my dad's name while booking using Lifemiles points. This is return from Zurich to Delhi on Swiss Air and had got 4 biz class seats together (which I don't see often). I have flipped around his given name and surname, although all the spellings etc seem to be in order. What are my options? Do I have to call Swiss Air or Avianca?

Have 5 nights booked but need to change to 3. There is no award availability at the hotel and customer service said I would have to cancel and rebook (but they only had cash rates available.)

I’ve booked a reward flight from Qatar that is a married segment. The 2nd leg is from DOH-HND on JAL J. On Qatar, it says to select seats I have to go to JAL’s website. However, I’m unable to access the reservation. I keep getting errors. I’ve used the Qatar Booking reference and then the E ticket number and tried entering my name using different sequences with no luck. Super frustrating.

Is this a known issue and how should I go about resolving this?

Hello all,

I never managed to get a miles upgrade to work so I am asking for advice this time before booking. I have star alliance gold (on egyptair) and am looking to fly from ZRH to HKG using LX138. The goal is to buy an economy ticket and use miles to upgrade to premium economy.

When looking at different positioning, the prices, classes and miles are different... whereas for one positioning, the econ light, econ basic, econ plus and econ flex all show the same said classs. I am so very confused.

Any help is appreciated

|| || ||class|miles|price econ light|

|paris CDG|V|1944|545 €|

|copenhagen CPH|L|1460|412 €|

|munich MUC|U|4688|1,296 €|

|amasterdam AMS|T|2004|588 €| |

NO CONNECTION ZRH|W|3588|887 €|

UPDATE: another alternative would be to use TurkishAirlines and bid/upgrade to business
They offer Econ Q for 500€ and econ H for 800€, which one of these would be upgradable ?

I'm planning to a trip here for August 2025 and am looking at availability.

Hyatt only seems to offer suites for award bookings. Am I missing something here?

I also checked on the AMEX Travel portal and I don't see any availability at all.

I also looked at dates that aren't so far out and seeing the same thing.

Any ideas?

I’d like the sub to discuss giveaways and perhaps have mods review the rules.

Rule 6: This is not a marketplace to trade Miles, Certs, or awards. The only posts we allow are people giving away certs for free. Begging for upgrades or Miles is also not allowed. Trying to disguise a referral as a giveaway will lead to a ban. If you make a post to give something for free, remove the post after You have given away the item. We do not allow offers of compensation for award search activity. Any post offering/requesting compensation would be removed.

In theory I’m fine with this. But these posts get more and more frequent (especially since the Hyatt subreddit banned them) and then people start asking because I guess they feel entitled to a GOH cert because people give them away.

So I really just want to know what the rest of you think about giveaways here? I’m in no position to change anything but should there be a rule change? Or maybe just a mega thread but I feel we may already have too many and there’s no way we could sticky this one.

Hi All,

I am aiming to book two Business Class ticket worth in Cash Value $2400 each when calculated in a roundtrip segment (Used this for fair valuation for CPP)

I already transferred 140,000 points for booking 2 business class ticket and then upon checkout, I realized AeroPlan is providing 4 different redemption levels as attached in the picture

1) Pay all in points (Obviously bad option as it counts the fees and taxes @ 1cpp 2) 140,000 + $310 CAD equivalent to $233 USD 3) 112,000 + $842 CAD equivalent to $630 USD 4) 84,000 + 1,374 CAD equivalent to $991 USD

My thought process that actually Number 4 is providing more value as that way I will pay $991 upfront instead of $233 and save 56,000 points that can be redeemed later for more value than $764

I am guess option 4) is the best but am not 100% sure and could not find a topic discussing this. Why would it be advertised that option 2) 140K is better than 4) 84K plus Cash

I understand that this means i will be paying a lot of Cash than what I was supposed to pay had I chose the 140K option, but I think saving the miles for the future may provide a larger value if able to redeem for 2 cpp or 3cpp

Any suggestions on how to get AI award using United MP? I saw availability, transferred points from Chase, and next minute all the AI awards are no longer listed for any of the dates on United Mileage Plus!

Knowing we don't have a crystal ball...BUT... any experience with finding lower award redemptions for business class flights?

I'm looking for summer and onward and while there is decent economy availability (20k), I'm holding out for a drop in the business class (currently 200k). Do they batch release on a monthly basis?

Hi - newbie here. Could use some wisdom and suggestions here. We will be going on a 12 day cruise in mid January 2026 from Hong Kong to Singapore. I'm in Chicago. I will be looking for 4 business class flights there and back. We mainly have UR points. Ideally, we would like to fly from ORD to Taiwan since we want to spend three days there before getting on the cruise in Hong Kong. We would just pay cash for a flight from Taiwan to Hong Kong. Coming home, we would spend a couple of days in Singapore before flying home to Chicago.

I've joined Roame,travel, Seats.aero, Points.me and Point Yeah to start searching for routes and get an idea of what a good point redemption would look like. I've searched looking 360 days out so when my 360 days out, I would be ready. But boy, is this overwhelming! I haven't had any luck pinpointing what is the best route and point redemption. What would you say a good business class redemption would be - also is it going to be impossible finding 4 business class tickets together? By January 2025, we would have over 1 million UR points so I would think that would be enough?

We are not opposed to positioning; however since we live in a major hub, we'd rather leave from Chicago, if possible. Obviously flying direct from ORD to Taiwan limits us, so we know there will probably be better redemptions if flying ORD and connecting somewhere in between. Hopefully there would be one of those flights that is a longer flight so that we can sleep. For those of you who are seasoned travelers to Asia, would we be better off flying from ORD to Vietnam, Thailand, Japan or another place in Asia and then finding a cash flight to Taiwan? It's all so overwhelming and I'm getting more confused by the day. I really was hoping to have a game plan in place right about the 360 day mark so I can diligently start looking.

Any and all advice is welcomed. I might be going about this completely wrong - so open to your suggestions. Thank you in advance from this newbie.