I spent time this holiday weekend looking for flights to Southeast Asia for early next year. I had a deadline because the Singapore Airlines award price increase went into effect on July 5th and I had to decide if I was going to book with them or was there another, better option.
I’ve searched for enough award tickets to know that I will probably not find the perfect flights on the first try. It’s going to take time going over different airlines, cities and loyalty programs to find the best deal. Knowing the various airline alliances helps when looking for award sweet spots.
After searching a few sets of city pairs, I saw almost zero business class saver award space with partner airlines. When I searched United MileagePlan for flights to Vietnam, the only options were flying the TPAC leg on United metal and connecting to either ANA, Asiana or Singapore for 180,000 miles per person. I looked at every Star Alliance partner and didn’t find any flights with award space.
I switched to look for award space with American AAdvantage. The airline’s use of married segment award tickets was maddening. For example, I found saver space on JAL for 60K miles for a flight from SEA-NRT but only for one ticket. However, if I searched for LAX-NRT, I could book two award seats for ONT-SEA-NRT traveling on the same JAL flight. AA also lets you book an LAX-SFO-NRT or SFO-LAX-NRT for 110K miles, but neither of the non-stop flights shows up for award tickets.
Forget about looking for SkyTeam, as the only flights to Asia are on Delta metal connecting to Vietnam Airlines, and those all cost 300K Skymiles.
Thanks to a search on Point.me, I found that Singapore Airlines had award space at the saver level for KrisFlyer bookings. Singapore releases more award space to its members than it makes available to partners, so it’s a viable option to look there if no other space is open. Award flights with KrisFlyer aren’t cheap, but 95K points (now 107K) for 15+ hours in business class on Singapore Airlines isn’t a bad deal. And since KrisFlyer partners with all of the major banks, earning points to use for award flights isn’t difficult.
You might end up paying 50% more than if you’d find saver space with American AAdvantage, but with that being almost non-existent, you have to learn how to find the next best option. Sometimes that involves spending a few more points than you were planning on.
Final Thoughts
While saver space isn’t dead, it’s challenging to find. When you find it, you might have to fly an unnecessary connection to get the ticket. If you have the time and don’t mind being on a plane, that might not be a problem. However, with air travel being the mess it is at the moment, there are very few people who will voluntarily put themselves in a situation where they could be stranded. Airlines know people are willing to pay more for favorable routings and they’ve now found a way to get us to spend more points for those same award tickets.
If you’re looking for saver award space, pack your patience and be willing to make some concessions. If you’re not having any luck, this may be a good time to use an award booking service.
Want to comment on this post? Great! Read this first to help ensure it gets approved.
Want to sponsor a post, write something for Your Mileage May Vary, or put ads on our site? Click here for more info.
Like this post? Please share it! We have plenty more just like it and would love it if you decided to hang around and sign up to get emailed notifications of when we post.
Whether you’ve read our articles before or this is the first time you’re stopping by, we’re really glad you’re here and hope you come back to visit again!
This post first appeared on Your Mileage May Vary
4 comments
So here’s the issue due to China and Taiwan effectively closed to tourists and Japan severely restricted the number of flights operated is way down. I fully expect last minute availability to be there in business class provided Japan and Taiwan are open. Eva in particular has 777-300ERs with a ton of business class seats doing most of their TPAC flying and they generally opened award seats up off peak. So unless you are planning to go in the first two weeks of January, you should find availability as long as Taiwan and Japan are open to tourism again.
I saw that EVA and ANA had no inventory available which limits the number of saver seats. The same problem goes for Cathay Pacific not operating. If everything else was equal, I could have waited it out. However, with Singapore redemptions going up 10K each leg, I had to decide now. I’m happy with what I booked but I found the same issues when searching for TATL flights.
So what did you land up booking? We don’t have to know exact dates for privacy reasons. But it would be nice what you figured out for your trip? Airlines, cities and approximate mileage costs? I have been trying to get either business or first to Japan for next March. Neither ANA or JAL are releasing any award space to partner awards. They release 2 seats, in each class, for their own programs and that is it! One may find an economy seat here or there but that is all. Economy to Japan right now is running $1800 RT which is very high. But the Japanese government is controlling arrival numbers, so pricing is high because of restrictions. I expect there to be some airfare specials when the country opens for tourism. But trying to plan a trip to Japan right now is very difficult.
Ended up booking with Singapore Airlines for 95K points plus tax.