As we all know, at times it can be challenging to find award availability, especially for travel in first and business class. Many people assume that airlines will always open some award seats as soon as the schedule first opens, but that’s not the case at most airlines.
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Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
Krisflyer doesn’t have a true guarantee but you’ve got a good shot at 2-4 J seats at schedule opening, even on routes from the Americas
Air India always has award seats available on all flights including 1 J/F for partners on every flight
Lotta 'Waitlist' for SQ J from the US these days, but when you see confirmed J long-haul, take it.
Often staying up until midnight GMT to snag a BA award seat in J on a popular route. I am sure people have Bots doing it for them.....
Alright let's check. Looking for 2 seats in J at the window (currently late Feb 2027):
SFO-SIN: Advantage at 148k
SEA-SIN: Saver at 112k
LAX-SIN: Advantage at 148k
LAX-NRT: Saver at 114 (weird that it cost more than routes to SIN, but demand I guess)
EWR-SIN: Advantage at 165k
JFK-SIN: Advantage at 165k
JFK-FRA: Saver at 89k
So JFK-FRA (which is pretty much always available), LAX-NRT, and SEA-SIN available for 2 seats at the low level. Worse than I would have thought.
For BA I’ll note that the availability of the award seat is also tied to the ability to ‘upgrade with avios’. Often times booking a Premium Economy seat and then ‘upgrading with avios’ can be a better deal than just booking the award seat, but obviously have to run the math.
Good overview.
I'd imagine SQ is gonna see a lot more attention, especially when ME3+ are now toxic.
The JFK-FRA on SQ is sometimes under $3,000 in J round trip if you are going off peak. Makes paying with points kind of a bad deal.
@Peter. How does that affect the cost of taxes and fees vs getting the business class award ticket? Thank you.
First week of August I was able to book LAX-NRT for 2 Saver J seats for mid-March. This is just prior to start of cherry blossom season.