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The last year has seen all four of the American legacy carriers make their miles less valuable.
- Delta bumped its business class awards up in price.
- United put premium cabins on partner airlines out of reach.
- US Airways went to the slightly inferior oneworld alliance from the Star Alliance, then bumped up the price of roundtrip business class awards to North Asia.
- American eliminated its Explorer Awards and free stopovers on all awards.
But great value awards still exist with all four types of miles. What are some of my favorites?
These aren’t necessarily the absolute best awards in each program (whatever that would even mean since the best award for you and the best awards for me are probably different.) These are just some high value awards in each program.
American Airlines
American Airlines has a ton of high value awards left since it hasn’t devalued its Saver award chart at all in the last few years.
I love American Airlines off peak awards. Fly to these zones during these dates for big discounts:
I really love the off peak deals to Europe and Southern South America, which both cost only 40k miles roundtrip during a lot of desirable times to visit. And don’t forget that off peak awards can be flown on any American Airlines partner. That means airberlin flights to Europe in April cost on 20k miles each way as do LAN flights to Argentina in November.
Another amazing award to highlight is a First Class award on Cathay Pacific to anywhere in Southeast Asia for only 67,500 miles each way.
I can’t wait to get back into Cathay Pacific First Class.
Delta
Delta increased the price of a business class award to Europe to 125k miles, but that doesn’t look so bad anymore given other airlines’ devaluations and likely future devaluations.
Delta’s own flights to Europe have fully flat beds in business class as do partners like Alitalia.
Delta partners KLM, Air France, and Alitalia are all bookable on delta.com, but searching for them is a problem because the award search engine’s calendar ignores partner award space.
Luckily the partners are easy to search quickly on Expert Flyer before heading to delta.com to book.
US Airways
US Airways increasing the price of a roundtrip award to North Asia in business class to 110k miles made some sense to me. The award had cost less than an award to Europe despite North Asia being farther away and despite the North Asia award allowing a stopover in Europe.
What doesn’t make sense (in a good way) was that US Airways hasn’t increased the price of a First Class award to North Asia, which still sits at 120k miles roundtrip.
A roundtrip in Cathay Pacific First Class or JAL First Class for 120k miles cannot be beaten!
United
I think there are some good values in United Business and First Class on the United award chart, but United has been very stingy about releasing award space on its own flights lately, so I’ll look elsewhere on the chart.
I think there’s fantastic value for awards in economy on United and its partners. One region with great deals is Africa, which costs only 40k United miles each way from the United States. United’s Star Alliance has by far the most award space to Africa.
I searched for space from Chicago to Cape Town and found incredible award space for two in economy next January and February.
The award space prices out at 80k United miles + $149 per person.
That’s a fantastic deal on a $1650 cash ticket.
Recap
We’ve all been hurt by recent airline devaluations. I’m maintaining an optimistic outlook overall because there are still plenty of bright spots in all the major programs.
Plus–and I know it’s the first time I’m mentioning this in this post–I think we’ll see higher sign up bonuses on credit cards to go along with the higher prices on the award charts.
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Scott what is your experience so far on ease of booking with the various US Airways partners since the switch from Star Alliance? Any that are a complete waste of time trying? I was hoping to book something on Qatar and Cathay Pacific.
It should be totally smooth to book those two partners.
Dave-I booked roundtrip from JFK to Brisbane (via Tokyo) on April 1st. I used our US Air miles and am flying Cathay business class on all segments. My husband and I had been searching and searching, and this option came available after the switch…so happy to get this booked, and 250,000 miles total for 2 of us.
80k miles + $150 for a $1,650 coach ticket is a “fantastic” deal? hmmm… no. not only you add an extra flight but also forego earning valuable alaska miles (almost 24k!)… while being stuck in coach for over a day each way… this is an ok deal at best if you have more united miles than you know what to do with. definitely not “fantastic”.
You could add a free oneway to the award too.
Sorry – I have to agree with Lantean here as well. $1650 vs. $150 + 80k miles is less than $0.02/mile. Even with a free one-way, I still wouldn’t call it fantastic.
There are better sweet spots, e.g., 140k RT to Australia in J, which is usually $8k – $10k cash.
Almost no one values business to Australia at $8k even if that’s the sticker price. Please see https://milevalu.wpengine.com/how-much-are-frequent-flier-miles-worth-a-guide/
I’ll let less scrupulous bloggers claim to get 5+ cents of value per mile by using premium cabin sticker prices.
On United’s current chart, unless you value premium cabins at retail, I don’t think you can routinely get over 2 cents per mile for all redemptions. The CPT example is very good for a United redemption. An economy award to Australia would be similarly good. A business class redemption to Australia would also probably be around 2 cents per mile if you use your subjective value of the trip at around $3k to $3.5k.
For those of us who were planning an extended Explorer award, is there any way to do something similar using the AA zone-based award chart? Similarly, any thoughts on considering a Delta Skymiles RTW itinerary in Explorer’s place? Are they apples and oranges because of the distance-based vs. one-direction approaches? And/or if we still want to do an around the world (or a multi-stop trip to South America or something along those lines) which airline’s miles do you think we should be accumulating? Thanks!!
Look for a post soon about using AA miles and Avios to simulate an Explorer Award. Here’s a good post on Delta’s RTW offering –> http://boardingarea.com/pointmetotheplane/2013/10/15/guide-to-booking-round-the-world-awards-with-delta-skymiles-how-to-rtw/
Lantean, Scott – you can also add a stopover at no extra cost on an international UA round trip. That may swing the value equation considerably. (Also, all revenue and award international bookings allow connections up to 24 hours. I use this to overnight in hotels along the way, making long-haul economy flights much more tolerable.)
Hi Scott,
Can I mix oneworld and US Airways partners on one itinerary?
E.g.,
If I want to book a round-trip LAX-BOM ticket and want to try out the EVA Air product (US Airways partner currently), can I book LAX-TPE on EVA followed by TPE-HKG-BOM on CX (oneworld)?
Another option could be CX on LAX-HKG-BOM and TK (US Airways partner) on BOM-IST-LAX…is that routing permissible?
Thanks!
Hitesh I was told no. The US Airways rep I had checked with two different supervisors and both said no. I ended up having to drop two South African flights from my planned itinerary. I ended up on Iberia, Qatar and AA.
Just to clarify….I’m looking to make the booking using Dividend Miles
I agree the award to CPT is not fantastic redemption at less than 2 cents per mile and forgoing 24k earned miles, but it’s not bad.
Which airline’s program is best for tickets from the U.S. to Israel, either economy or business class?
Hi Scott,
I just want to clarify if I book an award economy flight one way using AA miles, the cost would be 20,000 points , flying with
a) American Airlines and can be booked online one aa.com
b)Or with any of it’s partner such as British Airways – found award flight on their web with Iberia..would I be able to book by calling AA and pay phone booking fee in addition or I can only book this flight using Avios points. I have UR I can transfer.
Thanks for your help, and always very helpful blogs.