How Many Miles Are Needed For An Award Ticket?

One of the amazing things about the miles and points game is how far your miles can go if you know what you’re aiming for. It’s one thing to rack up miles from bonuses and promotions, but actually redeeming miles can be more complicated.

Ben has written extensively about how to redeem miles in the various programs, but as there are so many new people this week I thought it would be helpful to give an overview of how many miles you need for an award ticket. For longtime readers this will mostly be review, but maybe you’ll notice a sweet spot you’d missed before.

I’m going to focus on business class as that gives us a good general range, but you can of course redeem for first class as well in many cases! Similarly, these charts are focused on routes to/from North America. There are great values in other regions as well, so we’ve included links to the award charts so you can dig in further.

Finally, not every program out there is included below. If you want a more comprehensive view of award charts, make sure to check out the section on Loyalty Programs.

All prices are one-way, except those marked with an “*” — these programs only allow you to book round-trip awards, so there’s no discount in price for a one-way. It’s also worth noting that Delta no longer publishes award charts, and has a very complicated pricing scheme, so those prices are really educated guesses.

What are all these transfer partners?

Several rewards programs offer the option to transfer points to an airline partner. These are referred to as “flexible points” or “transferable points.” They are most easily accrued through credit card spending/bonuses, but there are often opportunities to leverage shopping portals and other bonuses as well.

Before anyone asks, you generally can’t transfer miles from one airline to another. So while you can transfer American Express Membership Rewards points to Air Canada Aeroplan or Delta SkyMiles, you can’t transfer points from Aeroplan to SkyMiles.

Why aren’t you talking about domestic flights? Or economy?

While there are some good values to be found in redeeming miles for domestic flights, it’s honestly not the best use of your miles. Similarly, given that international economy tickets can often be purchased for a very low cost, it generally doesn’t make sense to spend your hard-earned miles to sit in the back of the plane.

There are exceptions, of course, but here at One Mile at a Time we like to focus on the ridiculous and aspirational things you can do with your miles.

Business Class to Europe

There are hundreds of flights a day between North America and Europe, so if you’re flexible with your routing or schedule it’s typically not too tough to find award availability, particularly if you’re booking well in advance.

† One note on Alitalia. They changed their award chart for their own flights back in 2012, but have been offering a “promotional” chart that matches their SkyTeam chart since then. That has technically expired, but whether you pay the promo rates or the “correct” rates really depends on the agent you get

Aeroplan has hands-down the best value for business class travel, particularly if you can redeem miles on carriers that don’t levy fuel surcharges. They also allow either two stopovers or a stopover and open-jaw on a round trip, and you can always get reimbursed for the fuel surcharges.

Turkish Business Class has no fuel surcharges when booked through Aeroplan

Singapore KrisFlyer also has fantastic rates for awards on their own metal. You receive a 15% discount by booking online, which lowers the price of those awards dramatically.

Business Class to Central and South America

For some reason, every airline seems to divide this region up differently, so there’s not really a way to make a clean and easy chart here. This should give you a general idea, but if you’re planning award travel to South America you probably want to look at the specific award chart for the program you’re interested in so you know which zone your destination country is in.

LAN offers lie-flat seats in business class to South America

Business Class to the Middle East, Africa, and Indian Subcontinent

This is another region where there is a wide range of geographical definitions, particularly as many mileage programs seem to have rather arbitrary ways of dividing Africa.

In general, when redeeming miles for travel to India or Africa look at routing through Europe or the Middle East whenever possible. You’ll make some additional connections, but will generally get a better product in exchange.

Qatar Airways has dine-on-demand catering, and lie-flat seats

For business class, United offers a great value to these regions. You won’t pay any fuel surcharges, and can have open-jaws and a stopover on a round-trip itinerary. Combined with the sheer numbers of Star Alliance partners, there are possibilities for great redemptions.

Business Class to Asia

There are so many good business class redemption opportunities here it’s hard to pick a favorite. There is a bit of a balance between things like stopovers and fuel surcharges, but for the most part I think most of the business class prices are pretty reasonable, so it’s hard to go wrong here.

Every business class seat on Cathay Pacific long-hauls has direct aisle access

Business Class to Australia, New Zealand, and Oceania

Award travel to the South Pacific is complicated — there isn’t a ton of capacity compared to other regions, and availability is generally poor on the few direct routes between North America and Australia. Given that, my favorite programs are the ones that allow you to route via Asia, as that expands options dramatically and gives you access to better products as well.

Delta and United offer some of the best values, in my opinion. United will allow you to route via Asia, and doesn’t levy fuel surcharges. Delta will allow routing via Asia as well, but more importantly they partner with Virgin Australia, which actually releases award space on routes to the US.

Virgin Australia business class is one of the few options for direct flights using miles between Australia and North America

Bottom Line

Obviously award availability is going to be the determining factor in many cases, but hopefully this gives you a general idea of how many miles you’ll need as you’re building up your balances.

Do any of these rates surprise you? Anyone have a favorite redemption to share?