r/awardtravel

I wanted to share a success story that shows diligently utilizing credit card points can make a bucket list item achievable.

I recently signed up for the Bilt Palladium card - to gain points for my mortgages. I used points I accumulated to transfer 100k points to BA during a rent day to get 200k points.

I transferred those points over to Qatar. Qatar was running a special 30% transfer bonus from Citi around that time as well. I transferred over 108k Citi points to get 140k Avios. I booked round trip airfare from DFW to JRO in QSuites for me and my husband.

My husband travels a lot for work and had already amassed 600k Marriott points. Chase was running a 60% transfer bonus to Marriott. I transferred 115k Chase points over to his Marriott account and was able to redeem a 5 night stay, utilizing 5th night free, at Mapito Safari Camp for an all inclusive safari in the Serengeti for early June to see the Great Migration.

Total points spent:

600k Marriott points;
100k Bilt points;
108k Citi points;
115k Chase points.

Cash Value: $32,884
Roundtrip airfare: $16,255
Mapito Safari Camp: $16,629

Few years ago, I started to accumulate points on BA and booked nice Qsuites/First class on QR via BA Avios for 75K each way. I don't recent posts about BA Avios anymore. Does this method still work? I was made aware recently that booking directly via QR website is limited to account owner. Another reason why I preferred booking via BA avios, despite being transferrable to QR, was that BA considers the whole leg as one trip of 75K but QR back then was more expensive.

Would anyone be able to help check how many Avios points it costs to purchase seat selection on a business class flight on Qatar Airways? We have a Q suite booking but want to see if it's worth using points to pre-select seats. It currently shows that seat selection is $103 per person per leg, but we do not have enough Avios points to see how much it would cost in points. Thanks in advance!

I'm not sure if it's a skill issue or not, but I'm finding it increasingly harder and harder to redeem AA miles on partners, especially to Asia. JAL awards are transient and often phantom, BA awards are terrible given the surcharges, Qantas awards are increasingly rare now, CX J/F availability is blocked out, there's still sweet spots to be had, but a lot of the time, it's accessible with other partners too.

Ironically, my best AA flights have all come from Alaska redemptions like 45k Alaska miles from East Coast to LHR.

I know AA's Flagship offering isn't strictly the best, but I find reasonable availability on them for business as low as 35k, F around 50k. Sometimes 10kish or so higher, but still reasonable, given Flagship flights are priced around $1.5k to 2k each way, they seem like decent usages of them.

Given I fly transcon a lot, my burndown plan on AA is just to use most of my AA miles on JFK to LAX/SFO transcons whenever there's availability at a cheaper price, rather than hunting for JAL sweet spots and other stuff.

As I outlined last week, AA launching ORD to NRT likely meant they were simply going to swap slots w/ JAL due to their joint venture, rather than being an actual net addition on top.

So now we get into a common award travel problem, having booked a flight a year or many months in advance and now the flight is cancelled, so you have a rebooking to deal with.

• At the minimum, you are owed a refund, what you paid for whether it's Avios, JMB, Alaska miles, etc. You can get your money back
• If you still want to fly to Japan, then you need to figure it out based on who you booked with.
  • The ticketing carrier (hence not necessarily JAL) is the one that helps far out in advance.
    • The key is that the ticketing carrier does not simply "force" availability that doesn't exist onto partners i.e. Finnair cannot make JAL space appear, only JAL can do that, there are cases where they can ask JAL to create space, but the control is still within JAL's purview.
    • They can only really help rebook you onto their own metal like a Finnair flight or whatever remaining partner inventory exists.
  • So, if you managed to book w/ AA for example, you could ask them to reaccomodate you onto the new ORD-NRT flight as a 1:1.
  • If you booked w/ JAL, you could ask them to move you onto another comparable JAL operated flight like ORD to HND.
  • Note that the concept of award availability still applies in all cases, it's possible that there simply is not comparable saver availability on the flight that they can put you on.
    • The main caveat being that airlines have more freedom to access own metal inventory.

So as most of you know there are 2 exceptional cabins available in Emirates First:

1. A380 for its Shower Spa

2. 777 for its Gamechanger Suite (fully enclosed suite)

I notice that BRU-DXB costs about 120.000 miles on Skywards one-way which is quite steep. However, if you combine it for a route such as BRU-DXB-MRU or SIN, the mileage cost raises to 163.000 miles, which is a great value for experiencing A380 and 777 F cabins.

For fully maximising the experience, choose a route that requires overnight in DXB and enjoy a complimentary luxury stay in DXB.

With the current CapitalOne to Eva transfer bonus I was looking to book a J award ticket from LAX to BKK via TPE. To my surprise there was practically no availability in J all of November.

Don’t get me wrong I know J award space for transpacific flights is quite competitive but EvaAir always had ample award space in their own award program(all the Amex and Chase influencers weren’t pushing it and the booking process itself is a little more tedious than other award programs making it relatively insulated from the masses).

For example, I booked a LAX to Japan flight with them back in November 2025(for March 2026 flight) and there was tons of award space almost everyday.

Has Eva stopped releasing tons of J award space like they used to their own award program? This is highly unusual for this program so trying to get a sense if this sweet spot is effectively dead?

Full disclosure, I am new to award travel and do not fully understand a lot of processes others take for granted. I've tried researching independently but still feel confusion, so I figured I would ask.

I am looking at a trip to Hong Kong with EVA Airlines because they are way cheaper from my home airport than other airlines of comparable quality. What I wanted to do is buy a ticket for premium economy with my own money and then use points to upgrade. Likewise, EVA is doing a promo where I get bonus miles for booking a flight within a certain timeframe. For these reasons, I'm pretty deadset on EVA.

The problem is, as I am sure you all know, the Amex point transfer value to EVA is not great. Thus, I was wondering about transferring points to another partner airline within the Star Alliance umbrella and then using those miles to upgrade an existing reservation at EVA. The problem is that this is a complex process which I cannot determine is even possible, or how I would do it even if it is possible. Thus, I have these questions:

1. Can I do this process above, and if so, how?

2. If I cannot do the process above, what is the most efficient way to use my miles/is there some other way to translate my points to EVA miles at a more favorable rate?

Thank you all!

Trying to book a Qatar economy ticket via AA miles and getting this error:

>Our system is having trouble Please try again or come back later.

Tried web and the app.

Anyone else having this issue and a solution?

Registered for JAL family club over 2 weeks ago. Got the confirmation email for application but nothing has happened since. Miles did not show up in p2 and 1k points was not deducted. What should i do next? Had this happened to anyone else?

I fly roughly monthly and trying to figure out if any of these paid travel memberships actually pay for themselves at that frequency, or if they only make sense for the weekly road warrior crowd.

I’m trying to book business seat award travel via Virgin (on the phone) for an ANA flight from ORD, LAX, or SFO to HAN. I see availability on the United website for flights to HAN using only ANA but when I call they note they are all sold out. Is it because they’re a different partner? Based on the threads I’ve read they should be relatively the same. The gentleman was noting premium economy on Vietnam Air for 107k but that’s not a great redemption. Thoughts?! Thank you!

Edit 1: I also tried JFK but they said they don’t do award travel from JFK to HAN via virgin

I’m very confused since I don’t usually book on Qatar - I am trying to find two J saver awards for 85k each for BOS-DOH-MLE next Aug 2027. When I look at the current T-361 availability (ie July 2) there’s space for BOS-DOH… but nothing for the DOH-MLE leg? In fact when I put my route in as BOS to MLE, it says there are no awards at all for months. Am I inputting something incorrectly?

I had made an award booking for 30k for the 2 of us via AF. We won’t be flying that route.if I cancel and have the 30k points redeposited I would have to pay 70 euros per person. What would you do?

Just found out yesterday I have 9 days off starting next week Friday (PTO days expiring = happy accident). flying out of ORD and haven't planned anything yet.

I know I've already missed the early booking window so I'm not expecting miracles. but there has to be a smarter way to do this than just opening expedia and clicking the first thing that looks okay

Stuff going for me... dates flex by a day or two on each end, I dont really care where I go as long as it's warm-ish, budget is sub $2k all in for the week, decent at finding fares but not a points jedi. award space at this notices is probably cooked anyway. Also, hard rule, I refuse to fly frontier even for cheap

What has worked for you under a week out recently? all ears.

Welcome to the daily help and question thread!

This thread is renewed weekly and is intended for all discussions or questions that do not warrant their own thread.

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The more specific information you provide, the easier it is for people to give specific advice. Also, we prefer to teach people to fish, rather than just giving you a fish. So before you ask someone to help, please read Our Wiki. Questions that shows you have at least tried to find an award are more likely to get answered.

• Here are the information you should provide when requesting award assistance
• Origin and destination cities (are they flexible?)
• Number of Travelers (Your chances of success goes down as this number goes up)
• One way or round-trip
• Class of service desired
• Desired date(s) of travel (are they flexible? Hard dates == Less Chances for success)
• Your points balances: all airline, credit card and hotel points (If you are looking for J/F, think at least 6 digits)

Please share award opportunities in the Monthly Award Thread!

It's a direct flight to TPE. I needed 3 seats and haven't had much luck finding business. Any pointers or thoughts? This is around Christmas school break. Thanks for your info.

I meant to post this weeks ago but forgot. I was lucky enough to find two ANA J class seats last summer for this July. I have a family of four so I put them on the waitlist for two additional J class seats. I know these are notorious for not opening up but to my surprise my waitlisted seats were confirmed for both, 20 days before my flight. Unfortunately, I already booked a nonrefundable PY seat so I only redeemed one of the two.

Just figured I would give some hope to those on waitlist. It’s rare but does happen! My flight is from JFK-HND.

Esp those that doesnt extend if you add miles, like Krisflyer. I think $12-15 for 6 months additional.

If so, how much miles before you consider paying to retain them? Or are they just not worth paying over?