Hopefully, you have an idea of the most relevant frequent flyer programs and their partners, and some idea of where you want to travel. But how do you search for reward seats and turn this into a real booking?
The first step is finding coveted reward seats – we consider travelling in Business and First Class to be one of the best uses of your points. But this is often easier said than done. After all, reward seats in premium cabins are quite limited, and other readers are hunting for them too.
Our general rule of thumb is to start your search with the program you are looking to redeem points in. If you find the seats you want straight away, then great! If not, it’s time to start searching.
In this beginner’s guide, we show you some of the common ways to search for reward seats with major airlines and alliances around the globe.
ANZ Rewards Velocity Platinum
- Bonus points
- Up to 80,000 bonus Velocity Points
- Annual fee
- $149 p.a.
- Earn
- Earn 1.5 ANZ Reward Points per $1 spent on eligible purchases up to $2,000 per statement period, then 0.5 Reward Points per $1 you spend on eligible purchases above $2,000 per statement period. Keep on your auto redemption to transfer your ANZ Reward Points to Velocity Points. 2 Rewards Points for 1 Velocity Point.
ANZ Rewards Velocity Platinum
- Bonus Points
- Up to 80,000 bonus Velocity Points
- Annual Fee
- $149 p.a.
- Earn
- Earn 1.5 ANZ Reward Points per $1 spent on eligible purchases up to $2,000 per statement period, then 0.5 Reward Points per $1 you spend on eligible purchases above $2,000 per statement period. Keep on your auto redemption to transfer your ANZ Reward Points to Velocity Points. 2 Rewards Points for 1 Velocity Point.
Get up to 80,000 bonus Velocity Points + $50 back with the ANZ Rewards Platinum Credit Card. Earn 60,000 bonus Velocity Points and $50 back when you spend $3,500 on eligible purchases the first 3 months from approval, plus 20,000 bonus Velocity Points when you keep the card for over 15 months from activation.
Search for reward seats with free tools
You can search for reward seats on the airline websites, but there are also a few third-party tools that can help you locate and set alerts for reward seat availability across a wide range of carriers.
1. Use the Qantas Flight Reward Finder tool
| Best for: Qantas, its partner airlines and oneworld airlines |
If you don’t want to search the Qantas website yourself, you can use the Qantas Flight Reward Finder tool to find reward seats. The tool, adapted from Gyoza Flights, allows you to search by region or city, dates or cabin to easily find your reward seats. For example, you can use the filters to locate Qantas Business Class reward seats from New York, as below:
Not only does it provide Qantas-operated flights, but it also shows results for partner airlines. It displays available flight classes, the number of points you’ll need to book the flight, and any additional taxes. The main downside is that it doesn’t cover all routes, though most major ones are included.
2. Use the Virgin Australia website
| Best for: Virgin Australia |
The Virgin Australia website now has a built-in tool that will show reward seats on Virgin Australia-operated flights. We expect this will eventually be expanded to partner airline flights, though there isn’t a timeline for this yet. If you’re searching for a Virgin Australia domestic or short-haul international flight, you’ll be able to see the lowest points pricing across several months.
Read our full guide to finding reward seats with Virgin Australia.
3. Use American Airlines AAdvantage
| Best for: oneworld partner airlines (e.g. Qantas, Cathay Pacific, Japan Airlines) |
The American Airlines AAdvantage website is easy to use and has a handy calendar feature. This is the quickest way to check availability on some oneworld carriers, such as Japan Airlines and Cathay Pacific.
The main advantage of the AA website is that you can perform live monthly searches. Below is an example search for a Business Class seat from Sydney to Singapore. Selecting ‘non-stop only’ in the filters will quickly help you find reward seats on direct flights.
Of course, if you find availability on the AA website and want to use your Qantas Points for a booking, you will have to reconfirm availability on the Qantas website and then book there.
4. Use United MileagePlus
| Best for: Star Alliance partner airlines (e.g. South African Airways, Turkish Airlines) |
United is a US-based Star Alliance carrier and has one of the best ways to search for reward seats on Star Alliance member airlines. When looking at multiple flights, we suggest searching for one flight at a time. Below is an example of an ANA reward seat from Tokyo to Sydney that you could book with Velocity Points, KrisFlyer miles, Aeroplan Points, or even Virgin Atlantic Flying Club miles.
It’s useful for finding South African Airways reward seats to book with Velocity Points, since those flights don’t appear on the Virgin Australia website.
5. Use Air Canada Aeroplan
| Best for: Star Alliance and unique partner airlines (e.g. Air Mauritius) |
Air Canada is one of the most versatile frequent flyer programs in the world. Not only does it belong to the Star Alliance, but it also has many bespoke partnerships with carriers such as Virgin Australia and Air Mauritius. It also shows most Star Alliance partners, such as Thai Airways and Turkish Airlines.
While Air Canada’s search isn’t the best, per se, it does have a weekly scanner at the top that highlights the cheapest rewards.
6. Use the free versions of paid search services
Most of the premium search options in the section below also have free access to certain features. These are usually limited in the filters and date ranges available (for example, you might only be able to search the next 60 days with no advanced filters).
Search for reward seats with paid tools
1. Use seats.aero
| Best for: all-rounder, set alerts |
Seats.aero is widely regarded as one of the best reward seat search engines we’ve seen in a while. It supports a wide range of airline programs including Qantas Frequent Flyer, Velocity Frequent Flyer, Air Canada Aeroplan, American Airlines AAdvantage, United MileagePlus and more.
Currently, the base features are free to use with searches within two months of today. You can unlock full calendar search, seat alerts, and other cool filtering features with a subscription for US$9.99 a month or US$99.99 a year. You can also run fare class searches, potentially eliminating the need for ExpertFlyer.
Want a discount? Australian Frequent Flyer Gold members get 10% off annual subscriptions, while Platinum members get 25% off.
2. Use Gyoza Flights
| Best for: seats bookable with Qantas or Velocity Points |
Australian-run Gyoza Flights is behind the free Qantas Flight Reward Finder. But they also operate a paid service on their own website. There’s a handy table listing all recently found Business and First Class flights you can book with Qantas or Velocity Points.
You can also run your own bespoke searches and set alerts, which is the main points of difference from the free Qantas version (and of course, the ability to search Velocity!)
Want a discount? Use the code TPW100 for $100 off your first-year annual subscription. Note: we may receive a commission if you use this code, at no extra cost to you. Thanks for your support!
Honourable mentions: ExpertFlyer and Award Nexus
| Best for: advanced users, GDS search |
While both of these tools have been somewhat superseded (unless you want specific functions), it’s worth knowing about ExpertFlyer and Award Nexus.
ExpertFlyer is a subscription-based website priced at US$6.99 to $19.99 per month, depending on the features you need. It’s often used for fare class searches and can find award seat availability on selected airlines (though the list is rather limited). It also shows seat maps integrated with AeroLOPA – and you can set alerts if a particular physical seat becomes available.
Award Nexus is another search tool that specialises in doing live searches across a range of airlines and alliances. If you are a FlyerTalk member, you are eligible for a free Award Nexus community membership. You can request 100 points for free every 90 days. Points are used to power searches (usually a few points for simple searches).
It supports searching across both oneworld (through British Airways and Qantas) and Star Alliance (through Air Canada and ANA).
Summing up
Searching for reward seats isn’t always easy – particularly for complex international itineraries. It takes patience, knowledge and a fair bit of creativity to get what you’re looking for on many occasions.
Our final tip? Don’t forget to also check out when frequent flyer reward calendars open, as you won’t find any seats if nothing has been released yet.
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The best way to search for reward seats is to start with the airline’s own frequent flyer program website, such as Qantas for Qantas Points or Velocity for Virgin Australia. Both airlines also have free seat search tools.
If you can’t find what you’re looking for, try independent tools like Seats.aero and Gyoza Flights for broader alliance-wide availability. These tools often show reward seats across multiple dates and airlines, saving you time.
If you prefer, our team can also alert you when seats on popular routes are available. The best way to stay updated is to sign up for our Rewards Seat Newsletter.
To find Qantas or oneworld reward seats, use:
- Qantas website (for Qantas and most oneworld partners) with the free Flight Reward Finder.
- American Airlines AAdvantage (great for Qatar Airways and JAL availability)
- British Airways Executive Club (shows oneworld space + number of reward seats)
- Seats.aero and Gyoza Flights for multi-airline, multi-date searching
To check Singapore Airlines or Star Alliance reward seats, use:
- Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer site (especially for Suites and First Class, only visible here)
- United MileagePlus for a user-friendly Star Alliance search
- Air Canada Aeroplan for Star Alliance and partner airlines, including Emirates and Virgin Australia
All of these allow flexible date searching and show partner award availability.
Yes. Tools like Seats.aero and Gyoza Flights allow you to set up alerts for when reward seats become available. This is a paid option.
Great article and thanks for the discount for Gyoza – at that price it was hard to resist an annual subscription. Busy setting up alerts now!
Isn’t it a waste of time searching for reward seats other than on the actual Qantas site itself? I mean how are you actually going to book the flight if it’s not on the Qantas site? Qantas call centre is hopeless.
I’ve signed up for BA Executive Club and can search for paid flights, but I can’t see how to search for reward flights. How do I search for reward flights (I have QF FF points) using BA Executive flyer?
Has anyone done this and found BA Executive Club better than QF site?
Hi Rick, you can search reward seats via this link when signed in. Most oneworld partner seats that show up should be bookable by Qantas Points, though it’s not 100% guaranteed due to various quirks.
With regard the the Virgin Australia booking site I would say that the major issue is not the breadth of dates shown but the fact you cannot select business class at the beginning of the search, which you can with everyone else Qantas, KrisFlyer etc.
This means you not only have to click into each date but also into each available reward flight to see if, with any luck, there is a BC seat available. This is only getting more time consuming as they add partners. I wonder why they make it so difficult or is it a ploy to prevent people redeeming for BC?
Will give some of the consolidators a shot, not optimistic, but thanks for posting.
How can I search for airline partners tickets on the Qantas website? For example, I would like to search for a LATAM flight from SCL to GRU, but when I try to search on the Qantas website, the option to choose SLC or GRU does not even appear.
I have tried expert flyer and this new aero one. I dislike that they both have disclaimers saying that the seats are checked periodically (frequency unspecificed) yet expect us to pay a specific amount at a specific frequency for unspecified accuracy. No thanks. Unsubscribed to both of them.
Two months ago I paid for Award Nexus membership. When I went to search using qantas points the system advised Qantas site unreliable and it could not find seats.
I found the qantas site easier to use and book my international travel
I have frequently looked for points seats on the KrisFlyer website and never seen any availability in any class on partber airlines or other star alliance carriers.
Hi,
With regards to using AA search to look for awards on other oneworld airlines I have found that availability shown on the AA website (specifically for Qatar and MH) is often not reflected on searches on the Qantas and Asia Miles websites. I have at least once called up cathay who confirmed there was no availability. I’m not sure if this would be phantom incorrect availability or does AA perhaps have access to extra award seats the other airlines do not. Has anyone else had this experience?
Hi Marco,
I’m late to your comment, but have also found (prior to Covid) that the AA site will show business availability with Qatar but when I search on Qantas site for the same dates, it only comes up with economy.
Not sure what would’ve happened if I’d contacted the Qantas call centre.
Hi Matt,
This morning on the BA web site for 11 Aug 2020 I can see 2 business seats GRU – MIA via LIM. No such seats on Qantas, but I can fly to GRU – LIM via MIA in business. If I search Qantas GRU – MIA on same date, I only see economy tickets. I spent half of Sunday arguing with Qantas via SMS that the routing in South America was either broken or a scam because direct flights between point A and point B could not be found but there were plenty of seats if you went via places you had no intention of going e.g. São Paulo to Rio would grout you via a Brasília. Any idea what’s going on with the Qantas booking engine.
Hi Matt,
Just to confirm i got this right;
I found on United MP, JFK-DPS with Turkish Air on J class for 90k points. I didnt find this option when searching with SQ web.
If i want to use my Krisflyer points to book this route, I need to feed this info to their call centre crew yeah? Will it still cost me 90k with Krisflyer ?
Thanks!
The availability on the United website should technically match that on the KrisFlyer website, but it sounds like that isn’t the case here. You could try calling KrisFlyer, but I doubt they’ll be able to access it. You can calculate the pricing here (note that Star Alliance redemptions through KrisFlyer increase in price on 16 April).
Thank you Matt. But What does it mean when Krisflyer call ctr can’t access the awards seat shown on United’s site? Can i still book them with my KF miles in any way?
Unfortunately, if KrisFlyer cannot see the flights on their website or via the call centre, then you cannot book the flight with KrisFlyer miles.
Thanks so much for your response. I have Amex cards but none of them have access to JAL rewards
I guess what i am getting at is, Qantas and BA all have two business seats available. If I book two on the BA website, will the two QANTAS ones disappear or will two still be available on Qantas. Basically can I book two with one award scheme and 1 with the other. There only ever seems to be two in business from Tokyo to Sydney on JAL
Hi, quick question on Avios reward flight availability specifically the seats available, I notice that the business class on JAL Narita to Sydney only seems to have two seats available but I need three. Likewise on Asia miles and Qantas, can book two seats but not three. Is there only two reward seats available to all of oneworld or could I book two on Asia miles and one on Qantas. Thanks for your help
Hi Jeremy
Reward inventory is determined by individual airline rather than the alliance as a whole. While alliance members must offer reward inventory to other airlines with the alliance, most airlines allocate more inventory to their own frequent flyers.
I have been using the award.flights Crome extension for the past few months. I have used it with a Singapore air account with zero miles. It does this automatically so you can do something else while it runs. It is brilliant, searches a month in I guess 10 minutes verses prob over 30 on the day by painful day on Singapore. You can then go straight to Singapore and enter the actual dates.
best thing is it means you can look at speculative routings just for fun. I found that LCA
( Larnaca – Crete) to Auckland and vice versa goes via Austria for 78000 Singapore. If you pay for a stopover it means you save 30,000 odd miles by not going to Europe direct and still end up in Europe.
same applies for CMN Casablanca but much less availability.
Larnaca is in Cyprus. Nice place for a holiday.
Have Pointimize.com been one of your tool options?
Not sure if this site was mostly popular among friends from the U.S, but I realize I can find Qantas frequent flyer program reward seats now with this one.
What an interesting site! I’ll have a deeper look into it. Thank you for sharing!
Hi,
To start with I am a ‘poor’ teacher who (with my wife) has points over a couple of different rewards programs. We are trying to look ahead for next year. We want to fly from Sydney to Bangkok September 2019 (28th, 29th or 30th) and fly back on the 9th, 1oth or 11th. We are thinking of buying economy tickets and then seeing about upgrading with our measly 28000 points each. When looking at this September when booking a Flex Plus we only need 30000 to upgrade to business. Is that per person one leg or the 2 of us for the whole thing?
Most important question how do we know if we do book a economy ticket that we can both upgrade to business?
Cheers,
Anthony
I would suggest posting this in our Questions section.
Hi just regarding using American Airlines to search for oneworld award availability. I’ve found it often has availability displayed for airlines like Qatar and MH in business but this is not reflected on searches on Cathay Qantas or BA websites. Is there some increased availability for AA members or is it just phantom availability? Not sure if anyone else has had a similar experience. I once tried to call Cathay who also denied the availability shown was correct.
Sounds like phantom availability. It should be the same across the websites. It’s a good idea to check what you find on AA against Qantas and British Airways.
Excellent guide. Saved my husband’s sanity and mine utilising points to travel long haul at Christmas time on business… 11 months in advance… opted for Nexus and was not disappointed. Relatively simple to use. One issue we had was selecting >2 people for family availability, then being able to get on same flights but separate classes. Ended up booking mixed class and setting alerts on flights, but the change sting to upgrade will likely be a bit of a hit.
Thanks for sharing.
When using the United website to search for award flights on Star Alliance airlines by individual flights i.e. SYD-SIN, SIN-BKK, BKK-FRA, FRA-MAD, how do you book the flights after a successful search?
Then you’ll book through the frequent flyer program you want to redeem the points through, either online or by phone.
Hi PH team
What’s been your experience with trying to secure Lufthansa business class seats as part of a Krisflyer RTW award ticket?
I’ve just booked RTW but need to fly gig-lhr with Tap Port. as LH have nothing available for July next year. Wondering if it ever opens up. I know about the first class 14 day issue but wasn’t sure if it’s the same for business.
Thanks in advance.
it doesn’t show CX award, but since it has british or qantas will it show CX through british or qantas search engines?
“Virgin Australia don’t allow you to search for availability online for any of their own partners through their website”
that quote is not correct
Thanks for that. This was a very old guide that I quietly updated but didn’t catch that. Updated.
That’s why I prefer Award Nexus – simple. But – the CX phantom space problem using the QF and BA searches (and as a result, in Award Nexus too) is hard to get around, no way I know of other than to try and book it.
Found Expert Flyer no CX award flights showing, KVS tool complicated to run on my iMac so would it be best to use Award Nexus instead?.
One question. For using velocity points to book Singapore airlines, what inventory does velocity have access to? Same as Krisflyer or Star Alliance partners? As we all know SQ are very generous to their own FFP members but very stingy to partners. (Not that I’ll use velocity points to redeem SQ flights as the redemption rate is really poor compare to Krisflyer.)
From what I understand, Velocity don’t get access to Singapore Airlines inventory they reserve for their own members…