One of the best ways to maximize airline miles is to redeem on an airline other than the one you’re accruing miles with. There are some fantastic arbitrage opportunities out there, whether it’s redeeming Avianca LifeMiles for Lufthansa first class, Alaska Mileage Plan miles for Cathay Pacific business class, or 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 more often than not, the individual airlines make the same amount of saver level award space available to members of their own programs, as they do to members of partner programs. That’s not always the case, though, and that’s fair enough.
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 business class award space available to members of its own program than to members of partner programs
- Lufthansa makes first class award space available to members of partner programs at most 15 days out
- Singapore Airlines makes most of its first class award space available exclusively to members of its own KrisFlyer program
- Speaking of Singapore Airlines, the airline makes more business class award space available to some partners than others; for example, Air Canada Aeroplan and Alaska Mileage Plan have historically had access to more space than other partners
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.
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?
I've notices more so lately that LH space is only missing on Aeroplan site - not sure if this is a glitch
I'm trying to book a nonstop flight on Air Canada to the US. Both Aeroplan and United show saver availability (X class). Even Aegean shows the availability in X class. LifeMiles web site is not working, and the call center agents tell me the flight is not available. How can LifeMiles not have access to this economy (X class) inventory if it being made available to Star Alliance partners?
Do you know why some programs are much better than others when you contact them at trying to resolve discrepancies? Specifically looking at why Lifemiles agents seem so much more useless than pretty much anyone else.
I would not always try to book an award reservation just to confirm it is available and then cancel it. I have seen with AS, when booking from CX, the award availability simply does not go back to the pool (when I checked from another source) even if the CX agent just mistakenly booked a flight.
Ben: DP for Asiana. Longtime Asiana Club members have discussed, and I had a CSR confirm, that OZ gets much less business class availability from *A programs than others. I know CSRs are definitely not the voice-of-god in FFPs, but it fits with other OZ members' experiences. Also: Etihad shows much less first class award availability for OZ than American (1 seat for OZ, multiple for AA), though Etihad business seems to match AA pretty...
Ben: DP for Asiana. Longtime Asiana Club members have discussed, and I had a CSR confirm, that OZ gets much less business class availability from *A programs than others. I know CSRs are definitely not the voice-of-god in FFPs, but it fits with other OZ members' experiences. Also: Etihad shows much less first class award availability for OZ than American (1 seat for OZ, multiple for AA), though Etihad business seems to match AA pretty closely in my limited experience.
Aeroplan is the biggest offender I've experienced in this regard, across all partner airlines, and due to every reason you can think of, and ones you haven't yet imagined.
No miles are transferred to that void unless I call in (if I'm ever able to get through to an actual agent), and the agent confirms that the booking is available, and they see it on their screen. Otherwise, not a single mile gets transferred into that abyss they call an airline loyalty program.
Saw Air New Zealand award availability on SQ website. Transferred the miles and booked the award. SQ then emails me to say the award does not exist! And my miles were stuck in Kris Flyer. SQ could not push the miles back to Chase. Finally made a non optimal award booking to use up those miles
When Qantas opened first class award availability to Sydney last fall, the partner desk at AS couldn’t book them but AA could. Seems like you needed some Saber functionality that AS doesn’t have.
Checked it on mant itineraries.
Ouch, just transferred miles to Turkish Airlines to book a United flight and they are not giving me any availability.
I didn't check with Turkish before I transferred if it's available but I still see plenty of I class available. I called them and they don't see anything as well, have you heard of any problems with them?
Ell, I have a solution (see flyertalk) - you need to contact their sales office (email JFK/IAD) and try a few times. Calling general TK award reservations will not work.
Literally in the process of booking an award on Air France website, and the availability is not the same whether I'm on the website or the app... so that is also a good one :D .
Sometimes you have to logout and log back in. Their site doesn't do well with changes to search criterias. It's annoying
Oh yeah I'm very, very familiar. I always log out and clear cookies/cache before a new search, but the app/website discrepancy is still a first for me!
Yep, I've seen that before.
Separately, this Capital One Travel Portal is absolutely terrible. Talk about discrepancy.
I'm trying to use my $300 annual travel credit to book a ticket. Dubrovnik - Madrid on August 20. Iberia will sell me directly a business class ticket. I'd like to use my travel credit from Cap One for my venture x card to book. Sadly, the cap one travel portal cannot find the same ticket on Iberia. It will only sell me...
Separately, this Capital One Travel Portal is absolutely terrible. Talk about discrepancy.
I'm trying to use my $300 annual travel credit to book a ticket. Dubrovnik - Madrid on August 20. Iberia will sell me directly a business class ticket. I'd like to use my travel credit from Cap One for my venture x card to book. Sadly, the cap one travel portal cannot find the same ticket on Iberia. It will only sell me a coach ticket, and I cant find any way to get it to find me the availability in business. It doesnt even allow me to search for business. What a terrible web site. any pointers?
@ Jason -- Just pulled it up and see the same thing. That's super frustrating, and makes no sense, since this is about as straightforward as it gets. You could try booking by phone, but I'm not sure whether that's worth the hassle to you compared to just using the credit toward another ticket.
Yeah tbd - I'm then looked at DCA-MIA in November - roundtrip, and it's more expensive for the same flights on Capital One than it is on AA.com. I thought it was supposed to be the same? And the capital one first class roundtrip fares are hundreds of dollars more than just booking through AA. WTF?
Capital One will provide a travel credit for the price difference after you book if you call and alert an agent to the discrepancy.