While I try to share tips for redeeming miles & points as efficiently as possible, in this post I’d like to address a common misconception that many people seem to have when it comes to booking award travel.
Continue reading: Myth: Airlines Always Open Award Seats When Schedule Opens
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
Great post and advice. Another consideration that's often overlooked is that planning far in advance also allows one to secure more favorable hotel pricing (points or cash) and protects against devaluations over the next 11 months from the time the booking calendar opens.
A lot of clickbait travel/points bloggers (not you Ben, thinking more so of TPG) will tout "70K AA points for Q-Suite from the USA to the Maldives!!!" And, it's like, yeah, that *can* happen, but usually it's extremely last-minute, within a day of the scheduled departure, because they haven't sold the seats, and it's in the off-season, on a random Tuesday, as a cyclone approaches those islands... Lotta hype. Usually, you'll pay 400K points/way. Bah!
British Airways lost me as a customer because of its failure to release award inventory. If I can't count on redeeming Avios, I'm certainly not going to give BA my revenue bookings.
Agree with the protection against devaluations.
But with dynamic pricing I find I save 5 to 10 on my annual travel costs by monitoring my points stays and rebooking when rates temporarily fluctuate downwards.
Absolutely and I do the same. I regularly check my award bookings right up until the cancellation window and rebook whenever the price drops.
For Japan Airlines & ANA awards across the Pacific it really has started being the case that someone else beat you to it
actually thats factually incorrect. speaking for marriott specifically, when the schedule opens they set cash and points fares very high in order to secure bookings from people who have fixed dates and need to book. Then as the dates come closer they adjust pricing based on demand, usually lower unless there's some huge event going on. in that case rebooking is great as you get points back
Anyone know when LH releases J seats (especially on 4Y) to Aeroplan? It's not 11 months out. I think it's closer to 4-5 months.
Iberia also releases way in advance all the time. But you're absolutely right that many airlines do so at the last minute. A couple of years back when at fixed rates, booked a Virgin redemption within a week of traveling. And a week before Thanksgiving last year, booked a flight on American the day after Thanksgiving at low miles (got about 8c/mile given the ticket price was v high)
One caution about Air Canada - of you book a *A travel ticket and include a leg from IST-MCT on Oman Air, you will be DENIED the TK Lounge access because even though you have a *A ticket, Oman Air is not *A, but an AC partner. The regular lounge is crap, especially if you have arranged your stop to have maximum time in the TK lounge. Very sad experience.
I had quite a few occasions, where I booked a flight when it came out, for, let's say 80K miles, and three days later it was 250K miles for the same flight, if it was still available.
This applies to all airlines, not just AC. Who issued your ticket never matters. Operating carrier is what matters for lounge access. (In some limited cases marketing carrier may also grant lounge access.)