Once you start trying to use airline miles to book international award travel, you quickly discover that flexibility is the key to finding award flights. There’s more than one way to be flexible. Some people are flexible about their destination. Others can be flexible with the dates of their trips.
Sometimes, neither of those works; they don’t work for us. So how else can you be flexible? You can be willing to start and/or end your trip from somewhere other than your home airport.
A beginner probably thinks it’s straightforward when booking an award ticket from Buffalo to London. You can do that search right from the airlines’ websites. But the search will say nothing is available unless saver space exists on domestic and transatlantic flights.
While saver award flights may be available from New York, Philadelphia and Boston to London, you’ll never see them because you’re searching for a ticket from Buffalo. Or maybe you need to get to Edinburgh, but there are no flights available, so you book award tickets to London but still need a separate flight to Edinburgh.
Welcome to the wonderful world of positioning flights.
A positioning flight is a separate airline ticket you book to get you to/from where you are to the airport where your award flight is departing or arriving.
These flights are necessary when you can’t find award space for a trip’s first or last leg.
While airlines used to cooperate about opening award space for people to get these flights included on the same award ticket, those days are long gone.
For example, take the flight we took from New York – JFK to London Heathrow on Virgin Atlantic in Premium class. While there were several flights from Orlando to London every day, none of them had award space for our desired date.
We needed to get from Orlando to New York for our evening flight to London. Understand, that these arrangements are not the same as a normal flight connection. There are several unique things you need to consider when booking tickets for positioning flights:
Choosing An Airline
You need to pick your airline for a positioning flight carefully. For several reasons, my first choice is a flight on the same airline as the award ticket. There’s a good chance they’ll fly from your home airport to their international gateway and flights will usually be timed well to make connections. If a flight with that airline isn’t possible, I’ll look for airlines in the same alliance.
You may be able to check in for your entire itinerary and check your bags all the way through if all your flights are on the same airline. This can also work with airline alliance partners, but the rules vary, depending on the airlines.
If you pick a different airline, or an LCC or ULCC for your positioning flight, you’ll need to pick up your checked bags, head back to the ticket counter, check-in for your second flight, and re-clear security.
Flight Delays
If your positioning flight is delayed or canceled, there’s a greater chance that an airline will help you rebook your award ticket if you were delayed because of them. But don’t think American Airlines will help if you miss your award flight because your Southwest positioning flight was canceled.
Some airlines have specific policies about these situations, so I’d check them out before booking any ticket.
Airport Terminals
If you’re flying into a large airport, there’s a chance you’ll need to change terminals. Some airports make this easier than others but it’s additional time you’ll need to figure into your travel plans. Even though we were flying on partner airlines Delta and Virgin Atlantic, we had to take the JFK Jitney to get from one terminal to the other. Fortunately, this transport is past security so we didn’t have to re-clear the TSA checkpoint.
Baggage
We always need to check bags on international trips. As I mentioned, if you pick a different airline for your positioning flight, you’ll need to wait for your bags to come off the plane and re-check them with the second airline.
If your baggage is delayed, the positioning flight airline is only responsible for getting bags to the destination on their ticket. You’ll then have to arrange to get the bags to your destination.
This is why booking with the same airline or one with an interline agreement is preferable when booking a positioning flight.
Overnight
There are times when your award flight is scheduled such that you can’t get to the airport on the same day. In this case, you’ll need to fly in the day before. You could fly in late and stay at an airport hotel, or you could fly in early and make it the first day of your vacation.
When arriving the day before, the above issues don’t matter. You’re going to be collecting your bags. It will be necessary to check in the next day. You can search for this flight the same way you book any other flight. Just try not to book the last flight of the day because you’re in trouble if it’s delayed or canceled.
If it’s an important trip you have planned for months, I’d try to fly in the day before if possible. When we took our trip to Australia from Los Angeles, we arrived the day before and headed to Disneyland. Our flight wasn’t until the next evening so we had plenty of time to relax and get to the airport early to spend some time in the lounge.
How to pay for positioning flights
Positioning flights is one of the expenses you incur when booking award travel. Depending on the flight times and locations, they can be expensive and more than you’d want to pay for a “free” vacation.
There are some ways to alleviate the cost of these tickets. One of the easiest ways to offset these costs is to use a card like the Barclays Arrival+ or the Capital One Venture X. Since you can use your points to pay for travel expenses, these cards are great for positioning flights.
Finding an inexpensive award ticket with a different airline from your award trip is also possible.
You can use the money you’ve earned with a straight-up cash-back card to pay for these flights. The 2% cash back you earned with the Fidelity Rewards card can pay for these tickets.
You can also book flights through the travel portals using your Membership Rewards, Ultimate Rewards, or ThankYou Points but in most cases, this isn’t a great use of points.
The last thing you can do is keep looking to see if there’s any fare sale or points discount on a positioning flight.
Final Thoughts
When searching for and booking award tickets, one thing that often goes overlooked is positioning flights. If you need to get to some faraway airport, you could be looking at a $500+ round-trip ticket on a connecting flight to get to where you will start your trip.
If thinking about everything makes your head spin, you could always consider using an award booking service.
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