One of the best ways to maximize airline miles is to redeem on an airline other than the one you’re accruing miles with, and take advantage of award pricing sweet spots. There are some fantastic arbitrage opportunities out there, whether it’s redeeming avianca lifemiles for Lufthansa first class, or redeeming Virgin Atlantic Flying Club points for All Nippon Airways business class.
While many airlines release the same award availability to all partners, there are often discrepancies in availability between airlines. Why does British Airways Executive Club show a Japan Airlines award seat, but American AAdvantage doesn’t? Why does Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer show a Singapore Airlines award seat that partner programs don’t have access to?
I figured it would be worth addressing that question here in a “big picture” way. What causes discrepancies in award availability between airlines, and what can be done about it? Below are some thoughts…
In this post:
Airlines don’t make all award space available to all partners
The single most common cause of award availability discrepancies is simply that not all airlines make all award space available to partner airlines.
There are three major alliances — oneworld, SkyTeam, and Star Alliance — and historically the individual airlines have made the same saver level award space available to members of partner programs as they did to members of their own program. However, that’s increasingly not the case.
In some cases airlines make more award space available to members of their own program, and in some cases airlines make more award space available to some partner programs over others. Just to give some examples:
- EVA Air makes considerably more award space available to members of its own program than to members of partner programs, especially for business class
- Lufthansa makes first class award space available to members of partner programs at most 15 days out, though more often than not, just within a few days of departure
- Singapore Airlines makes most of its first class award space available exclusively to members of its own KrisFlyer program, and the airline releases different amounts of business class award space to different partners
- Qatar Airways makes more business class award space available to those with Avios currencies, whether it’s Qatar Airways Privilege Club or British Airways Executive Club
- Etihad is increasingly restricting premium award space to members of its own Etihad Guest program, and not making it available through partner programs, especially more than one month out
The point is, in some cases airlines just make more space available to their own members than to members of partner programs, which might explain an availability discrepancy when using an airline’s “native” website to search for space. While it’s rarer, in some cases airlines also make more space available to some partners than others, typically due to how close a particular partnership is.
This is a trend that’s becoming increasingly common, as the economics of airline loyalty programs have changed over the years.
Phantom award space can happen
It’s not uncommon for airlines to sometimes show phantom award space in online search tools. This happens with some frequency when you’re using one airline’s website to search another airline’s award availability.
Technology just doesn’t work properly sometimes, and that can impact the award availability that shows online. So if you see award availability with one partner but not another partner, it’s possible that the one partner has phantom space that wouldn’t actually be bookable when you go to ticket an award.
If you have sufficient miles in an account to ticket something, and if a program doesn’t have change or cancelation fees for awards (or at least honors the 24-hour refund policy), you can always try to book and see if it actually tickets. If you get an error message while booking, odds are that it was phantom award availability.
Delays in accessing award space
Delays in accessing award availability can also impact whether a particular airline shows award space. This can come in a couple of different forms.
First of all, not all airlines open their award calendars at the same time. You can only ticket an award through a particular program starting when the program would make its own award seats available.
As an example, American AAdvantage opens its calendar 331 days out, Qantas Frequent Flyer opens its award calendar 353 days out, and British Airways Executive Club opens its award calendar 355 days out. You could only ticket a Qantas award through American AAdvantage 331 days out, while you could ticket the same award through British Airways Executive Club up to 353 days out.
There’s another aspect to this as well. While you’d think airline websites update inventory in real time, that’s not always the case. Some airline websites may only see newly loaded award availability with a delay of several hours, or in some cases even a day or two. In these situations, the award space could generally be booked by phone, but not online.
Sometimes award space is intentionally pulled
Sometimes a loyalty program may intentionally not show partner award space. This could be for a couple of reasons.
For one, sometimes there’s a dispute between airlines when it comes to award availability. This could be related to the volume of award tickets being booked, or it could be over a disagreement regarding reimbursement. This can cause airlines to throttle award availability.
In some other cases, airlines may intentionally take certain award availability offline. This could be due to a system issue whereby an airline isn’t correctly confirming partner award tickets (for example, I know that recently some Star Alliance programs had issues with Ethiopian Airlines actually correctly confirming partner award availability), or in some cases it may be taken offline due to a redemption being particularly popular with fraud from mileage brokers.
Other technical glitches & limitations
Then there are also all kinds of other “random” glitches that can occur. I wouldn’t assume they’re malicious, but rather technology sometimes isn’t perfect. The underlying technology that displays award availability on partner airline websites is complicated, and sometimes a code gets broken, something hasn’t been updated correctly, etc.
Similarly, sometimes there are point of sale restrictions, married segment logic, and much more, that can contribute to space not showing correctly.
Solutions to airline award discrepancies?
In some cases there are workarounds to these airline award availability discrepancies, and in other cases there aren’t. While the workarounds depend on the exact situation, here are a few common solutions:
- Just check back online after waiting several hours or a couple of days, and maybe the award availability you expected will be loaded
- Call the airline, because in some cases there’s more availability for agents by phone than what you see online (due to website limitations); if you get a helpful agent, you can see if they can try to “direct sell” or “manually request” award availability on a flight, which would help for situations where there’s simply a glitch preventing the availability from displaying
- Play around a bit and see if the space is actually there at all, or if it could be phantom; check award availability on several partner airline websites, try to ticket something through a partner airline and see if it confirms, etc.
Bottom line
Airline award availability discrepancies seem to be increasingly common, and in most cases there’s not much that can be done about it.
These discrepancies can happen for a variety of reasons, ranging from technological limitations, to websites simply not displaying all inventory, to space intentionally being blocked.
There’s not one consistent solution to this issue, though the above is a rundown of what can cause these problems, and what you can do about them (in some cases).
Have you ever dealt with an airline award availability discrepancy? How did you handle it?
On top of the previous comments, the once popular ANA RTW in J is nearly impossible to book for that same reason.
There are just too many miles out there and the airlines don't want you to redeem them. And too many new people in the game that follow blogs and youtube channels.
It's near impossible to get 2 Biz flights transpac for a reasonable amount of miles anymore, or in all business class. You need to be self employed and be able to pick up and go at any time and be willing to put...
There are just too many miles out there and the airlines don't want you to redeem them. And too many new people in the game that follow blogs and youtube channels.
It's near impossible to get 2 Biz flights transpac for a reasonable amount of miles anymore, or in all business class. You need to be self employed and be able to pick up and go at any time and be willing to put in hours of work just to find any availability.
I'm dropping my airline credit cards to just earn Chase points. Use the portal to pay for flights with points or transfer to Hyatt. My airline miles are becoming less and less useful each year. In the years between 2005-2015, I was able to easily book low redemption transpac biz class award tickets on BR, KE, TG, UA, CX, OZ, NH, almost any time I wanted for any dates I wanted, outside of peak holiday travel periods. Now it seems near impossible.
The weirdest is when award space is available on an airline via another program but not on the airline's own program.
I have seen this with Iberia awards (IB metal, IB flight number) being available to book on AAdvantage but not available online with avios on BAEC or Iberia itself. I have booked these and had them ticketed so its not a case of phantom availability.
It make sense for airlines to prioritize their own airline currency or group's currency
Good afternoon travelers. With all these changes in the availability of companies, it is becoming increasingly difficult to issue premium tickets from partner companies. I often find myself with miles left over from a company that I don't need at the moment and another missing that is available in that company. Are there places where we can trade miles between travelers?
The flight-operating airline can restrict mileage ticket inventory availability that some, many or all partner airlines can see or book. Sometimes the flight-operating airline restricts it by point of sale, so a block that is applicable on the mileage program carrier’s (primary) website isn’t necessarily applicable at say a call center location overseas that has its own POS in use.
The mileage ticket-issuing carriers also sometimes restrict availability with some partner airlines.
Usually there...
The flight-operating airline can restrict mileage ticket inventory availability that some, many or all partner airlines can see or book. Sometimes the flight-operating airline restricts it by point of sale, so a block that is applicable on the mileage program carrier’s (primary) website isn’t necessarily applicable at say a call center location overseas that has its own POS in use.
The mileage ticket-issuing carriers also sometimes restrict availability with some partner airlines.
Usually there is a financial motivation involved in the Balkanizing of mileage space availability. If it’s not that, then sometimes there are tech glitch-related interruptions between ticket-issuing carrier and flight operating carrier. But the restricted availability for those using partner airline program miles is mostly a deliberate product of financial considerations on the part of the ticket issuing-side or on the flight-operating-side — sometimes it’s both that want to unwind or rebalance the financial relationship for either a period of time or maybe even indefinitely/permanently.
Also worth mentioning that some programs (looking at you lifemiles) won’t show some itineraries even though they exist on legs. Eg if I search Munich to Sydney in a couple of weeks United shows it in biz but lifemiles doesn’t. However if I search the legs individually they show up on lifemiles.
Hey Ben, can you look into Virgin Atlantic restricting ANA premium redemptions I’ve called many times over a few weeks and none of the tickets were able to be booked even though they were available on United, Singapore, Turkish etc.
The best way to deal with airlines that practice award availability blocking for partner airlines is to not collect points or chase status with said airline's loyalty program and instead bank points and chase status with a partner's loyalty program. If said loyalty program simply just does not allow you to redeem for a specific award for whatever reason even if the availability is theoretically available, then you're SOL and your points are stuck. The...
The best way to deal with airlines that practice award availability blocking for partner airlines is to not collect points or chase status with said airline's loyalty program and instead bank points and chase status with a partner's loyalty program. If said loyalty program simply just does not allow you to redeem for a specific award for whatever reason even if the availability is theoretically available, then you're SOL and your points are stuck. The problem is that there's no telling what algorithm or rules are used to determine this and you just have to run manual queries, browse blogs and forums to keep a "running list" of issues and trends that are present.
Worst offender for me is of course Delta Skymiles but I've long since dumped my points but Avianca Lifemiles is also up there and so is Air Canada Aeroplan but to a much lesser extent.
There's nothing specific here - only "maybes" and speculation beyond airline policies and calendar specifics.
You've not explained anything regarding the actual process and technology used to communicate awards availability to partner airlines.
British Airways used to show so much phantom availability on partner flights. I dealt with it by stop collecting BA Avios.
I have been in this game since the 90´s.
90% of the time airline programs are intentionally blocking partner award and sometimes their own metal. Only when its convenient they unblock partner space. In reality they dont follow their own rules or they pretend they will comply.
Aeromexico Rewards very rare to see AF & Delta business class space.
United very difficult to reserved save rewards and almost never business class rewards...
I have been in this game since the 90´s.
90% of the time airline programs are intentionally blocking partner award and sometimes their own metal. Only when its convenient they unblock partner space. In reality they dont follow their own rules or they pretend they will comply.
Aeromexico Rewards very rare to see AF & Delta business class space.
United very difficult to reserved save rewards and almost never business class rewards from mi home airport MID, even when its empty.
AAdvantage, business class reward from USA to ME in QR, Etihad, its a unicorn. Very rare they show IB. They prefer to show BA metal than their own AA.
Iberia Plus, only good for IB metal and sometimes BA. Very glitchy.
Lifemiles, very inconsistent and glitchy, Its a punishment to redeem something. Its a coin in the air.
I major change I see in the reward program, its that, in the past if you plan well and anticipate your needs, then with some adjustment You will find what You want, but that its no longer the case. Now the system its a little beneficial only a few weeks before your travel dates.
In other words, airline programs wait as long as possible to release business class space in an affordable level.
Global premium travel is at an all-time high. Airlines are selling their F & J seats at full price already. No need to waste that seat on an award booking 6+ months out. Until demand drops, we'll all be battling to find a future award or have to wait until 1-2 weeks out instead :(
I love that you put a picture of a JAL plane under the Phantom Space section. The amount I've seen the last few months when searching through both AA and especially AS is insane (and incredibly frustrating).
I could not agree more. Back in January there was lots of availability. Now there is next to none, I actually have not seen a non-phantom date available in weeks. Found phantom one today, it only shows option with a specific layover before JAL. Huge PITA. Has AA pulled all JAL availability or the other way around? Even 365 days out
This year United has been showing a bunch of phantom award space on Swiss and Lufthansa, on routes (West Coast - EU) I've successfully booked before so this is new. Very frustrating.
Same here! Super frustrating....
Unless something has recently changed, United has, for a long time, no longer allowed support agents to "make" itineraries. If it doesn't show as a bookable flight route on the site, regardless if a routing has availability, they can't book it without charging mileage for each segment or block of permitted segments.
Virgin Atlantic seems to be having phantom award availability for Air France intra Europe business flights at the moment.so cross reference with Delta to confirm award availability before transferring points. I called Virgin and they said it’s been going on for a few weeks . I think they said it’s related to to Air France rolling out some type of new premium economy award ticket
Lucky- do you have any insight as to whether QR still release to advantage J seats on nonstop USA-DOH flights? I haven't seen availability for months and none so far for the first 4-5 months of 2025. Normally by now you'd have seen it. They did release availability to BA avios for QR J nonstop USA-Doha next year. Is this being eliminated for AA redemptions? Any insight?
I have personally booked a couple US - DOH tickets for May 2025 two weeks ago. So its definitely available but its very competitive right now
Sometimes they release reward for only one or two dates in a search of 330 days, It´s crazy, I saw it from DFW & MIA.
I have seen space (not too much but a few options) in QR website.
Conclusion the rewards in J with QR in AAdvantage is blocked.
A few months ago (in nov-dic-23) - I did get J seats from DOH-MIA but in the Privilege QR Program. In AAdvantage only show economy, and many Doha to European cities in Business Class.
Alaska used to be one of the best for redeeming on partners across the globe...but in the past two years, good luck getting practically ANYTHING on partners like Singapore...or business class at a reasonable redemption rate.
Steve, I got Condor in J FRA to SFO, and on to OGG for 55 K Alaska miles last summer, and because I liked it so much, flying them again this summer FRA to PHX, on to OGG for 55 K. I believe Condor in underrated, just because it looks like a caterpillar. LOL.
One big example that I see consistently of airlines that don’t make all award space available to all partners: Using AA to book JAL T-14, versus using BA to book JAL. AA seems to only get access to T-14 while BA avios will get the first picks before AA gets award space availability.
Whats the difference in fees like ?