Award travel works best by keeping the miles, points and out-of-pocket spend to a minimum. As I shared in how I book award flights, it’s important to have a plan and process. It makes for a more efficient and pleasant experience filled with fewer headaches.
As a primer, the U.S. has three major airlines that are each members of an alliance. An alliance is a group of airlines that allow other airline alliance members to book flights on their airline. An of example of this would be using United Airlines miles to book a Singapore Airlines flight. American Airlines is in the Oneworld Alliance. United Airlines is in the Star Alliance. Delta Air Lines is in the SkyTeam alliance.
In this post, I’ll cover the importance of using the Google search engine. The process for using Google is straightforward. It pairs well with the other steps I’ve laid out in previous posts.
Award Flights
Once you’re on the path to earning transferable points, it’s time to start crafting how exactly you’ll get to your destination. You’ll inevitably start with questions like “What date works best?” “Do I want to fly in a premium cabin?” “What airline program makes the most sense?” These are a few of the questions you’ll need to answer.
Like I mentioned in why I use Wikipedia to book cheap flights, working backwards from your destination will make booking an award flight easier. The Wikipedia page for the airports you’re flying into will show routes that you may want to fly. The page also shows airlines serving the airport you are departing from.
With a route and airline in mind, using Award Hacker to book award flights can save you a ton of time. The best feature is that it’s free and you don’t have to be an expert in every award program to see the best redemptions. The downside is that not all airline programs are shown and neither are fuel surcharges, which can be brutal.
Explaining my process through an example is what works best for me. I’ll continue using my Italy example from previous posts. As a reminder, I booked round-trip flights to Italy on Delta using Chase Ultimate Reward (UR) points that I transferred to Korean Air. URs transfer 1:1 instantaneously to Korean Air.
With a list of the best redemptions matching the transferable points that I have, I start with a simple google search. I searched “use points and miles to fly to Europe”. The result’s page lists blog posts pertaining to the topic. As you read these posts, you’ll notice a pattern emerge of the top 2-3 redemptions.
For flights to Italy, one of the top business class redemptions is to use Korean Air miles to fly a SkyTeam partner. Alitalia and Delta, SkyTeam members, fly non-stop between Italy and the U.S. I matched this with the results I received from Award Hacker which confirmed Korean Air was one of the best business class redemptions.
Knowing that URs transfer at a 1:1 ratio directly to Korean Air, I searched “Using Korean Air miles to fly Delta.” The result’s page, similar to the previous result’s page, lists blog posts related to the topic. Focus only on the posts that cover how to transfer your points and approximately how much the fuel surcharges will be.
Combining the results pages for both Google searches will help solidify how your transferable points can be used to book an award flight. I recommend checking ITA Flight Matrix and calling the airline, after you’ve found award availability, to ask for an estimate of the fuel surcharges. Make sure to minimize these charges.
Conclusion
Reading blog posts related to how to book an award flight can’t be understated. It’s empowering to know you’ve done your homework and are maximizing the points you’ve earned in the most valuable way.
Have you used Google to search for and book award flights? How do you use the search engine to book award travel? Please let me know in the comments or by sending me an email pointswithq@gmail.com.
Thanks for reading!
