Have a bunch of points and miles saved up but not sure how to use them best? Looking for the rarest of rare redemptions? You've come to the right place.
Our Thrifty Traveler Premium flight deal alert service digs up the best cheap cash fares and award alerts to use credit card points and airline miles, day in and day out. And in 2024, we're on pace to send more of those award alerts than ever before.
But there's a special tier of flight deal that sets off alarm bells at Thrifty Traveler HQ – the kind of deals we can't get into our subscribers' inboxes fast enough when we find them.
We call them Unicorn Alerts.
This designation is reserved for the rarest of all deals: lie-flat seats flying all the way to Australia, Delta One Suites to Japan for under 100,000 SkyMiles, business class flights to Amsterdam and Paris over peak, or Emirates first class flights to Italy for two. Only the best of the best flight deals earn our coveted unicorn emoji.
We are constantly searching for Unicorn deals for our members, averaging about one per month. But last week, we found and sent two Unicorn Alerts over a five-day span after unearthing unprecedented award availability to get to Southeast Asia in business class.
That's just the tip of the iceberg. So without further ado …
- Cathay Pacific Business Class from 58K Points Each Way
- A First Class Unicorn: Emirates to Milan from 90K Points Each Way
- A Double Unicorn: Qatar Qsuites & First Class Combo
- An Olympic Unicorn: Air France & KLM Biz Class During Peak Summer
- New Route Unicorn: Delta One to Taipei from 146K … Roundtrip!
- An Extra-Long Unicorn: NYC to New Zealand on Qantas Biz Class
- A “Qunicorn”: Qatar Biz Class from 70K Points Each Way
- European Unicorn: Delta One to Germany and Ireland from 50K Points
- The OG Unicorn Alert: Delta One Suites for 85K SkyMiles
Cathay Pacific Business Class from 58K Points Each Way
There's nothing better than a lie-flat seat for those long flights across the Pacific, especially when it's in one of the best business class seats in the world: Cathay Pacific. But that makes finding the award availability to actually book these coveted seats.
That changed recently, after Cathay Pacific announced it would fly to a brand new U.S. destination: Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW). We found these seats to Cathay's hub in Hong Kong (HKG) and beyond for just 75,000 points each way on that new route from Dallas.
For travelers with either Alaska or American miles, this was a goldmine. It had been years since we'd seen widespread award availability for either U.S. mileage program.
The cheapest way to book this deal, though, was using Finnair Avios. While only Capital One miles transfer directly to Finnair, you can also transfer points to British Airways from any of the other major banks (American Express, Bilt, Chase, Citi, and Wells Fargo), then easily move them to Finnair to get the Avios you need.
And thanks to a transfer bonus from Amex to British Airways, you could book these seats for as few as 58,000 points each way!
But that wasn't even the first Unicorn Cathay deal we found last month. Just a few days prior, we found similar availability from Chicago-O'Hare (ORD) to Hong Kong and beyond to Southeast Asia for the same rates. You could book one of these seats to Cathay's hub in Hong Kong (HKG) or connect onward to Manila (MNL) or Taipei (TPE) for just 75,000 points each way.
The cheapest way to book this deal was booking, again, with Finnair Avios, meaning (again) you could book these seats for as few as 58,000 points each way!
A First Class Unicorn: Emirates to Milan from 90K Points Each Way
Emirates First Class is about the fanciest way to fly in the world, and everybody knows it. That's why it typically costs $10,000 a ticket and is usually so hard to book using credit card points.
Emphasis on “usually“…
During our daily searches this summer, we found the unthinkable: Availability next year for two passengers to use points to book these snazzy suites flying Emirates' route between New York City (JFK) and Milan (MXP) on the airline's signature double-decker A380.
By transferring 102,000 credit card points to Emirates – or sending even fewer Capital One miles to Qantas, thanks to a transfer bonus – you could take one of the coolest flights in the world of travel. Bottomless caviar and an onboard shower, anyone?
It was a stunning deal that allowed travelers to use 102,000 Emirates miles each way, or just 108,000 Qantas miles. That's a first ballot hall-of-fame unicorn alert if we've ever seen one.
A Double Unicorn: Qatar Qsuites & First Class Combo
What's better than a double rainbow? A double unicorn.
We search for Qatar Airways Qsuites business class points and miles availability on the daily at Thrifty Traveler. It's the best business class in the world, after all, and our subscribers want to fly it … but struggle to book it.
Earlier this year, something different happened. While searching for that vaunted Qsuites award space you could book with points, we found that you could fly business class to Doha (DOH) … then connect onward to destinations like the Maldives (MLE), Thailand, or even Australia in Qatar Airways first class … for the same rate as flying business class the whole way!
That's right: Not a mile or penny more to fly up in the front of the plane instead.
This deal is long gone – join Thrifty Traveler Premium to get the next amazing award alert!
Think of it as a free upgrade to first class after a Qsuites journey across the Atlantic to destinations like Bangkok (BKK), Hong Kong (HKG), the Maldives (MLE), and Perth (PER). Best of all, that gets you access to the Qatar Al Safwa Lounge – widely considered among the finest airport lounges on earth.
This deal was also a no-brainer Unicorn, so we sent a text message alert to our subscribers so they could run, not walk, to book this bucket list air travel experience.
An Olympic Unicorn: Air France & KLM Biz Class During Peak Summer
This Unicorn Alert we sent this spring was a bonafide gold medalist. It's not hard to see why.
Here's why this deal was so special:
- Peak summer business class award availability is typically impossible to find…
- … let alone during the Paris Olympics
- Deep availability up to nine passengers in some cases
- To and from nearly all of Air France and KLM's North American gateways
- Bookable through Flying Blue (transferrable from Amex, Bilt, Capital One, Chase, Citi, and Wells Fargo!)
- All for just 50,000 points each way!
I can't remember ever seeing this much peak summer business class availability, helping travelers fly (in style) straight into the heart of Europe during the most in-demand time of year.
Read our guide to booking award tickets with Air France/KLM Flying Blue miles!
What's even wilder is just how many airports were included flying to and from Paris (CDG) and Amsterdam (AMS).
Air France and KLM left almost no U.S. or Canadian airport out of the fun – offering the same, low 50,000-point rate to almost every airport on the continent. That alone vaulted this Unicorn to the top of the podium.
New Route Unicorn: Delta One to Taipei from 146K … Roundtrip!
We're obsessed with new routes here at Thrifty Traveler. This deal should show you why.
Earlier this year, Delta began daily nonstop flights from Seattle (SEA) to Taipei (TPE). And back when those flights went on sale, Delta slashed the typical transpacific Delta One prices by more than half.
While SkyMiles are typically useless if you want to fly lie-flat, this brand-new route with so many seats to fill resulted in the lowest Delta SkyMiles rates to fly business class that we've seen in years: Under 150,000 SkyMiles … roundtrip!
Plus, Delta opened up these low fares to dozens of U.S. airports – helping connect travelers in Delta First Class to Seattle (SEA) and then in Delta One onward to Taipei.
Using SkyMiles to book Delta One is almost never a good deal. But when it suddenly becomes one, we'll always be the first to let you know.
An Extra-Long Unicorn: NYC to New Zealand on Qantas Biz Class
It's one of the longest flights in the world at just under 18 hours one-way. If you can't find the award space to use points and miles to book flights from New York City (JFK) to Auckland (AKL), it might cost you this much…
You're going to need a lie-flat seat to fly this many hours in a row on Qantas's Boeing 787. But with a heads up from yours truly, it could only cost 127,000 points – not $6,000 or more – to make this seat yours for the long, long, long haul.
That's exactly why this deal was Unicorn-worthy. For one, you need a seat like that for a trip that long. Also, it's extraordinarily rare that award space pops up on this route, which is why many happy travelers booked this Unicorn to kick off their trip down under.
A “Qunicorn”: Qatar Biz Class from 70K Points Each Way
Ask your bougiest travel buddy: The best business class seat in the world, Qatar Airways Qsuites, has gotten notoriously difficult to book lately.
So when QSuites seats opened up all throughout January and February, we sprinted to get this availability in our subscribers' inboxes.
The winter travel season in the Middle East, the Maldives, in Africa, and in the hundreds of other Qatar destinations that dot the southern hemisphere is the peak of peak season. That's what makes these 70,000- to 95,000-point redemptions such a steal.
European Unicorn: Delta One to Germany and Ireland from 50K Points
Pour one out: One of the best deals in the world of points and miles is officially dead. But we gave subscribers one last chance to book a Delta One seat to Europe for 50,000 points before it croaked.
Virgin Atlantic's frequent flyer program has long been one of our favorite ways to book Delta flights and save some serious SkyMiles in the process. Thanks to a close partnership between the two airlines, it's easy to use Virgin Atlantic Flying Club points to book flights on a Delta plane. Time it right, and you can save a boatload of SkyMiles on many Delta flights this way.
Sadly, Virgin Atlantic officially killed off this amazing business class redemption over the summer. But not before we sent this…
This Unicorn Alert hit our subscribers inboxes just minutes after we found the award space. In fact, we just heard from a subscriber who just took these flights we sent a few weeks ago and is currently living it up at Oktoberfest in Munich!
It's not unusual to see Delta charging 200,000 SkyMiles, 250,000 SkyMiles, 350,000 SkyMiles or even more … all for a one-way flight to Europe in Delta One. For example, the airline was charging a whopping 375,000 SkyMiles for a one-way flight in Delta One from New York City (JFK) to Munich (MUC) over this summer. Woof.
But you could book that exact same Delta One flight to Germany – same day, same plane, exact same lie-flat seat – for just 50,000 Virgin Atlantic points. That's less than one-seventh of the cost! That's the stuff of Unicorns.
The OG Unicorn Alert: Delta One Suites for 85K SkyMiles
Sometimes, you find a flight deal so rare, so time sensitive, and so unique, that it launches a new category of deal. That's exactly what this Delta One SkyMiles deal to Tokyo (HND) did: It launched the Unicorn Alert as we know it.
The deal prompted a text alert to our Thrifty Traveler Premium members so they could book it ASAP. And we heard from dozens of members that did.
We'd gotten all-too-accustomed to seeing Delta One seats selling for 500,000 SkyMiles or more. So when we unearthed this deal, alarm bells went off at Thrifty Traveler HQ.
You're not seeing things. You could book Delta One Suites all the way to Tokyo-Haneda (HND) or Seoul (ICN) for as low as just 85,000 SkyMiles each way. And surprisingly, Delta even cut members a deal when booking one-way redemptions – a rarity, as the airline typically forces travelers to book roundtrip for savings.
We heard from dozens of travelers who were able to book these fares using their SkyMiles. There's going to be some Delta One cabins full of Thrifty Traveler Premium members heading to Japan or South Korea next year.
Bottom Line
It's been a memorable year for points and miles flight deals for our Thrifty Traveler Premium members – but the most memorable deals were the ones that came with little unicorn emojis in the subject line.
Whether it's Delta One Suites to Asia, Emirates First Class to Italy, or a wild Unicorny week of Cathay Pacific Business Class flights to Southeast Asia, it's been an epic year of Unicorn Alerts … and we've still got three months to go!