Earning points and miles to fly for pennies on the dollar is the easy part. Using those miles wisely is another issue, and finding award availability – seats that you can actually book with those miles – can be the hardest part of all.
Most airlines handle award redemptions completely separate from their cash fares. It’s up to each airline to open up their seats to be redeemed with miles, and some are stingier than others – especially if you're aiming to fly in business or first class. That's why you might see award seats available only on select dates … or none at all.
The biggest trick to finding the flights you want is searching in the right place: Not all websites are created equal when it comes to searching for award availability. And while there are a plethora of award search tools that can speed up the process, nothing beats searching an airline's site manually – whether you want to confirm the flight you want is, indeed, bookable or pinpoint a big redemption before those automated tools catch it.
The best airline websites give you a calendar view to see a month's worth of availability all at once, let you filter for nonstop flights, and sort the results to hone in on what you're looking for. And as you'll see, that means it's often best to start searching through a U.S. airline's website … even if that's not one whose miles you'll wind up using.
Let's dive a little deeper into the best websites to search for award redemptions on each airline alliance as well as a few third-party websites that can help you find award availability.
Oneworld Award Availability Sites
The Oneworld alliance consists of 15 different airlines, including American Airlines, Alaska Airlines, British Airways, and many more.
Want to book a cheap American Airlines flight to Hawaii or the Caribbean? Or fly to Tokyo on Japan Airlines? This is where you need to look.
- Alaska Airlines
- American Airlines
- British Airways
- Cathay Pacific
- Fiji Airways
- Finnair
- Iberia
- Japan Airlines
- Malaysia Airlines
- Oman Air
- Qantas
- Qatar Airways
- Royal Air Morac
- Royal Jordanian
- SriLankan Airlines
If you're looking for award flights on any of these airlines – whether it's Qatar's world-best Qsuites or Iberia business class for as low as 40,500 Avios one-way to Spain – you'll want to use the following tools to find the availability.
Start Your Search with American Airlines
Hands down, the best way to find award availability on Oneworld airlines is heading straight to American Airlines' website.
You'll be able to start your search with more filters if you start out on its advanced search page. Here, you can choose to search for roundtrip, one-way, or multi-city flights, select the number of passengers, and choose to show only “Business / First” class awards under “Options.” A new option even lets you filter your results to only include connections in a specific airport.
However, it's after you hit search that the most powerful features become available. On the list of results, you can filter by the number of stops and airlines. And you can also sort your results by departure time, arrival time, duration, or price.
Best of all, you can open up a calendar search tool: a big reason American's website is better than the rest.
Once you open the calendar view, you can also filter by the number of stops and class of service – and you can easily toggle from month to month, too.
As a general rule of thumb, it's best to first search for availability on the nonstop, long-haul flight you wish to take and then try to find availability on connecting options afterward, if possible. American's ability to filter for nonstop flights on its calendar search makes this task much easier.
You'll also be able to use American's search tool to find award availability on non-alliance partner airlines such as Air Tahiti Nui, Etihad Airways, and Hawaiian Airlines (now part of Alaska Airlines). American lists all the airlines you'll be able to search for on its website.
Read our step-by-step guide to searching for flights with American Airlines!
Alaska Airlines Isn't Bad
Alaska Airlines has a robust search tool that allows you to view award rates in a calendar view – the most important feature of any award search tool. This allows you to find rates over a range of dates.
But there's a major flaw: With Alaska, you cannot filter this view to only show nonstop flights. While you can filter for class of service, you may not always get the best view of availability for the nonstop flights you're looking for. Case in point: This example of searching from Chicago (ORD) to Dublin (DUB).
If you're looking to fly nonstop on one of Alaska's partners, such as Aer Lingus or American, the calendar view is cluttered with connecting flights, including those offered by British Airways, which may have insanely high fees. This means in some cases you'll still need to search day by day to find the flights you actually want to book.
Nonetheless, Alaska's search results list does allow you to filter and sort by the number of stops, airlines, nearby airports, departure and arrival times, duration, price, and connecting airport. You'll just want to watch out for mixed-cabin awards on connecting itineraries.
Since you can't filter for nonstop on the calendar view, Alaska's search tool is best used to confirm availability after finding it on American's website – though this will only work for flights on shared partners. Alaska has a few unique partners outside the Oneworld alliance, which means it's still the best way to find availability on Aer Lingus, Condor, and Starlux Airlines, among others.
Read our full guide to searching on Alaska's website!
British Airways: The Best for Confirming Award Space
British Airways' website won't win any awards for being user-friendly.
First, you need to create an account and log in to be able to search – an annoying step that's not required with every airline program. You can only view award rates on partner airlines for exact dates, and you'll only get a week-long view to choose other dates.
But British Airways has its place. It's most useful to confirm space on the exact dates where you found availability on American or elsewhere, just to make sure it can be booked by another partner airline.
Another good use of British Airways' site is to search for availability on Oneworld airlines, such as Qatar Airways, Iberia, or Japan Airlines at the very end of the schedule – flights that are more than 330 days in advance. You won't be able to search this final month of the schedule on AA's site, and some airlines have been throttling award space for U.S. airline programs, like American.
Thrifty Tip: British Airways' site has an annoying quirk where your initial search results will often land on the day before you intended to search. You can quickly choose the date you actually want to search by clicking on the one-week view at the top after searching.
If you're looking for award space on British Airways flights in any cabin, they do have a handy Reward Flight Finder where you can pull up a calendar view for flights operated by British Airways. One important note is that you'll need to start typing in the city name rather than the airport code for some cities – for example, London instead of LHR.
Regardless of how many passengers you choose before searching while using this tool, the results will always initially show availability for only one passenger. Simply click “amend passengers” on this screen to choose the number of travelers you want to book, and the availability will update.
But this tool will only work for nonstop flights operated by British Airways so it's a bit limited in its scope. While it's true that you'll always get hit with higher cash fees when redeeming points and miles for British Airways flights, these fees did come down a few years back.
The generally solid availability and the fact that British Airways is the only airline to fly nonstop from many smaller US cities to London mean this could be a great option for some travelers.
Watch our video tutorial on booking with British Airways Avios!
Qantas has a unique calendar tool, but it's hidden from plain sight. You'll need to start your search from its “Multi-city” search page to see a calendar view of award availability.
This workaround isn't the most intuitive, but it can be a great way to find availability for Qantas business class seats, which Qantas generally doesn't allow to be booked with partner airline miles.
You won't see prices on this calendar. Instead, you'll get different colored ribbons, which indicate there's availability on those dates in a certain class of service based on the color: Red is for economy, yellow for premium economy, gold for business, and platinum for first.
The biggest downside to this tool is that, like Alaska's website, there's no way to filter for nonstop flights or specific airlines in the calendar view. This means you'll need to click through or search exact dates to verify if the availability is for the flights you actually want to book.
One advantage of this calendar tool is that you'll be able to see availability on Oneworld partners up to a full year in advance. This means you can search for availability at the end of the booking calendar on airlines like Japan Airlines or Fiji Airways before those flights would even appear on American or Alaska's websites.
This is because most international airlines start selling award tickets around 360 days in advance, whereas U.S. airline programs can only book award seats up to 331 days in advance.
In addition to Oneworld partners, you can also search for availability on a few of Qantas' unique partners, like Emirates, Air Tahiti Nui, and China Airlines.
Read our full guide to searching with Qantas' Award Calendar.
SkyTeam Award Availability Sites
Delta, Air France, and KLM are the top three airlines in the SkyTeam alliance. In total, you can choose between 18 SkyTeam airlines.
- Aerolíneas Argentinas
- Aeroméxico
- Air Europa
- Air France
- China Airlines
- China Eastern
- Delta
- Garuda Indonesia
- Kenya Airways
- KLM
- Korean Air
- Middle East Airlines
- Scandinavian Airlines (SAS)
- Saudia
- TAROM
- Vietnam Airlines
- Virgin Atlantic
- Xiamen Air
Looking to fly Delta One or Air France business class? You'll want to use the right tools to find the availability. Here are some of the best.
Delta: Easy to Use
Delta SkyMiles get a bad rap … and understandably so. Yet Delta's website has some of the best features you're looking for when searching for award availability. To top it all off, it's incredibly easy to use.
Simply start your search from the homepage and select “Shop with Miles.” In general, Delta reserves its lowest SkyMiles rates for roundtrip purchases, so you'll often need to search roundtrip to find the best deals – especially on Delta-operated flights.
You can also expand the “Advanced Search” options to include nearby airports and search for a specific class of service. If you want to avoid Delta's pesky basic economy fares and only search for main cabin tickets, be sure to click the checkbox to “Exclude Main Basic” before searching. This is a great feature, since, unlike its largest competitors American and United, Delta sells basic economy award tickets when redeeming SkyMiles.
If you're looking for long-haul business class flights, regardless of which airline you want to fly, choose “Delta One.” While the rates for business class flights using SkyMiles are usually through the roof, using its search tool can be a good way to pinpoint which dates are available using miles from other SkyTeam partners like Virgin Atlantic or Air France/KLM.
Once you've started your initial search, you'll be able to toggle between a “Flexible Dates” view, which shows a grid of availability within seven days of your search date, or a “Price Calendar” view, which shows a full month of travel dates for your desired trip length. We prefer the price calendar view as it allows you to see a wider range of travel dates and you can easily switch between months using the arrows on either side.
Looking for nonstop flights only? One of the keys to finding award availability is to first nail down the long-haul nonstop route, and Delta's filter makes this easy to see on its monthly calendar view. You can select to show only nonstop flights on the calendar by selecting that option in the upper right. You can also adjust the trip length to try and find cheaper prices.
You may not want to book a business class flight using your SkyMiles, but Delta's search tool can help you find the availability on partner airlines … which you can then turn to book with another program that has cheaper rates. For instance, China Airlines flights between the U.S. and Taipei (TPE) may cost 200,000 SkyMiles each way (or more).
But Delta's site can help you pinpoint that nonstop availability and book for just 73,000 Air France/KLM Flying Blue miles. Depending on the route and travel dates, it can be even less.
Read our step-by-step guide to finding and booking the best Delta SkyMiles deals!
Use Flying Blue for Air France & KLM Flights (& Now Partners, Too!)
Air France-KLM's Flying Blue search tool has improved recently. It's always been a great way to find the cheapest Air France or KLM flights over to Europe and beyond, but you can now use it to see a month's worth of flights at once on partner airlines like Delta, too.
You'll need to create a Flying Blue account and log in to search with either Air France or KLM.
To pull up the flexible calendar, the key is input your departure and arrival cities, and choose your cabin, but leave the “departure date” blank. Then, click “Search Flights.” It's easiest to search for availability one-way at a time.
If you do this, you'll open up a calendar search tool. You can then navigate between months and click through on the dates to verify availability. You'll sometimes find that the rates listed on the calendar are incorrect – or you may get errors when trying to click through. Plus, there isn't a way to filter for nonstop flights, so this will take a bit of trial and error.
Nonetheless, it can be a useful tool as long as you know its limitations. Keep in mind, the calendar will display the total number of miles required for all travelers. This means if you searched for two passengers, you'll see double the price it would cost per person.
If you're booking roundtrip, after you find dates in each direction, make sure to search those exact dates roundtrip and compare the taxes and fees with separate one-way bookings – sometimes this can be drastically different when redeeming Flying Blue miles.
Thrifty Tip: There's also another workaround you can try to pull up a month-long calendar of award rates, this time by scrolling to the absolute last date on the calendar Air France or KLM will let you select. Then simply hit “Search Flights” and see if the calendar appears.
See our step-by-step guide to booking award tickets with Air France/KLM Flying Blue miles!
Virgin Atlantic: Still Great for Virgin Flights & Partner Economy Awards
Virgin Atlantic joined the SkyTeam airline alliance a while back, and while Virgin's search tool has gotten more difficult to use lately, it does have a handy reward seat checker to find availability on its own flights in any cabin, and the search tool can be useful to find economy awards on partners, too.
This comes into play whether you're looking to book short Delta flights from 7,500 points each way, hop on an Air France or KLM flight over to Europe for 15,000 points each way, or if you want to fly Virgin Atlantic Upper Class to London (LHR) for as low as 29,000 points each way.
Virgin's new website can be a bit wonky and tricky to use. Critically, you'll need to be logged into your Virgin Flying Club account to complete your search. First, head to VirginAtlantic.com and toggle on “Search for Reward Flights.”
It will be easiest to search one-way flights separately rather than your usual roundtrip – and it's sometimes better to book one-ways separately when redeeming miles. Just enter your departure airport and destination and desired travel dates, then hit search.
From here, you'll see a one-week calendar at the top of the search results. Use the arrows on the right or left to see additional dates with award availability. Note: the rates on this one-week view at the top are the lowest available, so it will almost always be in the economy cabin. In practice, this means it's only really useful for seeking out economy awards.
Once you've found the flight you want, click through to book!
If the date you want is unavailable to book with points, you'll likely get an error message and will have to try another date – unless you're booking flights on Virgin itself. Virgin now prices its own flights dynamically, which means (almost) every date should be available to book with Virgin points. The cost may just be incredibly high.
Thrifty Tip: To see a month-long calendar of award rates for Virgin flights, use the Reward Seat Checker tool. Getting a month-long view like this is the key to ensure you book at the lowest rate.
Read our full guide to Virgin Atlantic Flying Club!
Star Alliance Award Availability Sites
The Star Alliance is the largest airline alliance in the world, with nearly 30 members in total, including United, Air Canada, and more.
- Aegean
- Air Canada
- Air China
- Air India
- Air New Zealand
- All Nippon Airways (ANA)
- Asiana Airlines
- Austrian Airlines
- Avianca
- Brussels Airlines
- Copa Airlines
- Croatia Airlines
- Egyptair
- Ethiopian Airlines
- Eva Air
- LOT Polish Airlines
- Lufthansa
- Shenzhen Airlines
- Singapore Airlines
- South African Airways
- Swiss International Air Lines
- TAP Air Portugal
- Thai Airways
- Turkish Airlines
- United Airlines
ITA Airways will also join the Star Alliance in 2026. If you're looking to fly on any of these Star Alliance carriers, odds are your best bet is to start your search with United's search tool and then confirm availability with another program such as Air Canada's Aeroplan or the frequent flyer program you're using to book the flight.
But recently, Avianca's LifeMiles calendar search has emerged as the best way to pinpoint award availability on nonstop flights within the Star Alliance network.
One major exception to this rule is Singapore Airlines, which doesn't allow almost any of its partner airlines to book first or business class award tickets on the vast majority of its long-haul routes. That means you'll typically need to search directly with Singapore Airlines to find award availability if you want to fly Singapore business class or first class.
Search with United First
Whether you want to fly Lufthansa first class, Swiss business class, or Turkish Airlines business class, you'll likely want to start your search for award availability using United's website. This is a familiar website for most and is relatively easy to use.
One negative change this year is that United now requires you to log in to search for award tickets. After logging in on United.com, search for one-way flights. Select “Book with miles” and “flexible dates” and the month you'd like to travel.
Choose the exact number of passengers you want to fly – if you're looking for business class flights with a companion but only search for one passenger, these results could lead you astray.
If you're searching for business class flights, select “Business” from the drop-down menu. Then, hit “Find flights.”
You'll see a month's worth of fares. If you're searching for business class flights to Europe, look for dates at 80,000 – 88,000 miles each way. After an increase last year, United now typically charges 88,000 miles each way for a business class ticket to Europe on a partner airline like TAP Air Portugal.
But it's not that price we care about – it's the fact that the flight is there, period. These exact same results will generally be available to book through partner airlines too, often for fewer points.
Note: United's monthly calendar search won't update when you filter for nonstop flights. Instead, this filter only applies to the flights listed below the calendar. This means you'll need to search day-by-day to pinpoint nonstop availability when searching on United's website. Keep reading to see how to use Avianca's LifeMiles site to help find nonstop award availability.
Copy down the dates and details of the flight you just found through United. Then, you can take them over to a partner airline's site and book through that airline.
Finding “saver award” space is key as it is the only award space that can be booked by partner airlines. United includes this language for economy awards but doesn't explicitly state this for business or first class – you'll need to instead look for the fare code in parenthesis. For Star Alliance airlines, (X) is a saver fare in economy, (I) is a saver fare in business class, and (O) is saver fare in first class.
Watch our step-by-step video guide on how to search United's website.
Use Avianca's LifeMiles Search to Find Nonstop Award Availability
As previously mentioned, finding award availability is easiest when you can nail down the long-haul nonstop route first. Avianca's LifeMiles search can help you with this task.
Again, you'll need to have a free account to use this tool. After logging in on the LifeMiles site, choose the specific airline you want to fly from the dropdown where it says “Smart Search.” Then, enter the route, choose the total number of passengers, and class of service. Do this before you select dates.
Then, click in the dates field to open up a calendar view. Dates that have a blue bar on this calendar generally have award availability on nonstop flights. It's not perfect by any means, but it's a pretty solid way to pinpoint nonstop availability on most airlines.
Keep in mind that this only works for Star Alliance airlines and other shared partners which you can search for on LifeMiles' site.
Read our full guide on how to use Avianca's LifeMiles award calendar.
Air Canada Aeroplan – Great to Verify Availability and Aircraft
Another great tool for verifying award availability on Star Alliance carriers is Air Canada's Aeroplan award search. You can simply search directly from the homepage by selecting “Book with Aeroplan points.” As is the trend with several airlines, you now must have an account and log in to search.
Unfortunately, you can't pull up a monthly calendar view with Aeroplan's search, but it is a good way to cross-check availability on exact dates that you found on United or Avianca's websites. Plus, you'll have several filters and sorting options available on the list of results, including an option to display the specific aircraft under the “more options” dropdown.
You'll be able to see prices on its five-day calendar displayed above the search results for whichever cabin you select with the filter above.
One unique feature of Air Canada's site is that the “Preview seats” link actually shows a seat map for certain partner airlines, too. As an example, this can help you determine if your flight has Lufthansa's new Allegris business class cabin.
Read our guide to booking award tickets through Air Canada Aeroplan!
Other Sites & Tools That Help You Find Award Availability
There are also a handful of third-party websites dedicated to helping you find award space. Some give you free trials to test out their services, but you'll often need to pay a subscription fee to get the most useful information.
We've compiled a list of 10 of the best award search tools on the market right now, including sites like PointsYeah, Point.Me, Seats.aero, and more.
Flexible with travel dates and destinations? Just looking to use your points and miles to go wherever there is a deal? We may be biased, but we think the best service is Thrifty Traveler Premium.
With a Thrifty Traveler Premium membership, you'll not only get flight deal alerts, but also award availability alerts across all airlines and alliances. And we only send deals that have good availability and can be booked for at least two passengers.
For example, our members recently received an alert for a ton of availability flying Qatar's Qsuites all the way down to Cape Town, South Africa.
Some flights are harder to find than others – and this unicorn award deal we unearthed to fly Delta One Business Class Suites to Tokyo from 85k SkyMiles each way is one of the best we've ever found.
Alerts also include a rough estimate of the taxes and fees, as well as detailed booking instructions and specific dates with availability. With all that information, you don't need to be an expert in points and miles to book these deals.
This rare award availability is long gone – get the next deal in your inbox with Thrifty Traveler Premium!
Bottom Line
Searching for award availability can be a daunting task. But if you use the correct tools and know where to search, you'll have a much easier time pinpointing the dates where you can book those elusive “saver” award seats.
Peter — this piece is gold. It’s a bible — at least at the moment.
Well done!