MileValue is part of an affiliate sales network and receives compensation for sending traffic to partner sites, such as CreditCards.com. This compensation may impact how and where links appear on this site. This site does not include all financial companies or all available financial offers. Terms apply to American Express benefits and offers. Enrollment may be required for select American Express benefits and offers. Visit americanexpress.com to learn more.
Note: Some of the offers mentioned below may have changed or are no longer be available. You can view current offers here.
Lately I’ve gotten several emails that feature a common mistake. The readers assume that the online seat map for a flight should or will match up with award Saver availability for a flight.
Just because an online seat map shows empty seats on your flight does not mean that there will ever be Saver award space on the flight.
Here’s a representative email I just received from a couple that wants to change an economy booking to a premium cabin for a flight home from Australia:
We happened to check award availability for our flight home last night, and saw online that first class had opened up. We called united and they said we have enough points and wouldn’t have to use any additional points, but that there was only 1 seat available for reward travel in first class, so we couldn’t change our tickets. However, according to the seat map on the website there are 3 open seats in first for our flight, so we’re hoping maybe another seat opens up – do you think there’s a chance another seat will open up so we could switch to first class?
What does it mean that three First Class seats are open on the seat map? Will an extra seat open up at Saver award prices for this couple?
Here’s the screen shot of award availability between Sydney and San Francisco on United’s direct flight this Wednesday (not the date they want to fly, just using it for the purpose of an example.) There is Saver award availability for 8+ people in economy and 1 person in First Class.
Here is the seat map of that flight, which you can bring up by clicking View Seats, just to the right of the award availability. It shows two “open” seats in First Class, two in Business, and dozens in economy.
As you can see, that doesn’t correspond to the Saver award availability. There are two main reasons.
- Sometimes tickets are sold, but no specific seat is assigned. In that case, more seats will show up as “open” on the seat map than there are empty seats.
- This is a current snapshot of empty seats, but United only releases seats at the Saver price if it expects them to go unsold by the time of the flight. United presumably predicts that it will sell a few more tickets before departure.
To give an extreme example of seat maps not matching Saver award space, look at this seat map for a March 2015 flight from Los Angeles to Sydney.
As far as I can tell, only two seats are sold on this flight, 20J and 20K. (2A, 2K, 20D, and 20E are unavailable on every seat map I’ve seen on this route, telling me that they are unavailable for other reasons like being crew rest seats.)
And yet the award availability is 8+ Saver economy seats, 0 Saver business seats, and 0 Saver first seats.
That’s because the seat map and the Saver award space picture don’t always or even usually match up.
That doesn’t mean that looking at a seat map is useless for predicting whether last minute award space will open.
Combining a look at the seat map of the flight you want to book with miles and the techniques in “Will You Find Last Minute Award Space? Here’s How to Estimate Your Chances” can improve your prediction rate, but it’s still just an informed guess, not something preordained by the seat map.
Getting back to the couple that wrote to me, there are three “open” First Class seats on the flight they want, and only Saver award space. There are zero days in the next few weeks with two First Class or Business Class Saver award seats from Sydney to San Francisco. Those facts combined make me think that they will NOT see two Saver award seats in a premium cabin on the flight they want. (I recommended that they book an itinerary that connects in Los Angeles instead because it does have two Saver Business Class seats.)
Just getting started in the world of points and miles? The Chase Sapphire Preferred is the best card for you to start with.
With a bonus of 60,000 points after $4,000 spend in the first 3 months, 5x points on travel booked through the Chase Travel℠ and 3x points on restaurants, streaming services, and online groceries (excluding Target, Walmart, and wholesale clubs), this card truly cannot be beat for getting started!
Editorial Disclaimer: The editorial content is not provided or commissioned by the credit card issuers. Opinions expressed here are the author’s alone, not those of the credit card issuers, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the credit card issuers.
The comments section below is not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser. Responses have not been reviewed, approved, or otherwise endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser’s responsibility to ensure all questions are answered.
I see the map diagram showing seats booked and seats available but where can I determine the numbers that you can up with in the following statement . . .
“And yet the award availability is 8+ Saver economy seats, 0 Saver business seats, and 0 Saver first seats.”
Obviously I am a novice!
First I searched for that flight for one passenger. I saw Saver economy but not business or first, so I knew that business and first had zero available Saver seats. Then I changed that search to 8 passengers, and economy space still existed. So I know there are 8+ seats (I can’t search higher than 8 easily).