Last month I wrote:
US Airways didn’t announce when its off peak awards to South America will be valid this year, but based on checking their calendars, the off peak dates appear to be March 1-15 and all of May.
US Airways has finally updated the award chart section of its webpage, and I correctly deciphered the dates. Off peak awards between the USA are available between March 1-15 and May 1-31.
US Airways 2012-2013 Off Peak Award Dates: The Best Value in Miles
This is all such huge news because US Airways off peak awards are the best value in awards. 35k roundtrip from the USA to Rio and 60k roundtrip in a flying bed to Europe, yes please! For a more thorough analysis of off peak awards and their rules, see this milevalue analysis.
Unfortunately, there are still no off peak business class awards loaded to Rio. But the off peak availability in economy class between Charlotte and Rio is pretty good. Here’s May’s availability. The left side shows Charlotte to Rio; the right shows Rio to Charlotte.
Charlotte to Rio is US Airways’ only route to South America
This is the key chart because US Airways only flies one route to South America–Charlotte to Rio–and US Airways off peak awards have to be flown on US Airways planes.
US Airways doesn’t have great domestic availability, so from your home airport to Rio, it might be difficult to construct an itinerary completely made up of low level/off peak seats to get in on the 35k miles roundtrip deal.
If you can’t find the itinerary, feel free to use my Award Booking Service like a growing number of savvy travelers are.
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Wow! I’m all over this! I have been waiting to time my next Churn and US Air was one of the cards I will get. Never expected US to have such good redemptions. We fly to Brazil once a year so this would be perfect(as long as I can leave from DFW to CLT! Never flew business, but at 60K that’s a steal! I think I’ll be getting this along with the 2 Hawaiian Air Cards and maybe one more.
Yes, you can go DFW-CLT-GIG as long as you can find low level space DFW-CLT and off peak space CLT-GIG. Unfortunately US Airways hasn’t released any 2013 space to Rio in biz but maybe they will.
What’s the estimated taxes + fees on a round-trip to South America?
$50 US Airways fee + $75 in taxes I would guess = $125 pp
Checking the NA to HI flights in May I don’t see any off peak awards, but I see low level availability. Does this mean that there are no off-peak awards available, or are they just not loaded yet?
There are no off peak awards between North America and Hawaii on US Airways. I think you are misreading the chart, which says you can get off peak awards to Europe or South America from North America OR Hawaii
I would love to take advantage of this if there was a biz class option. I just can’t see myself sitting in US Air economy for 10 hours…..
For the just a few thousand more than a roundtrip coach award, I could for sure!
If you hold a Barclays US Airways card, doesn’t it mean that the 60k r/t biz class ticket can be as low as 55k with the 5k discount?
yes
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