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 turn this into a real booking? The first step is finding those reward seats. If you don’t know how or where to look you’ll quickly get stuck thinking you have no options on how to use your hard-earned points.
Why is this guide useful?
There are many ways to research which seats may be available, and all have their own unique advantages and quirks, so if you do not find what you are looking for immediately, it is worth trying a second option.
The general rule of thumb is that, if in doubt, search for availability on the website of the program you are looking to redeem points in. So, for availability on Virgin Australia, search with them; the same goes for Qantas.
However, that is not always going to help when you are trying to put together an itinerary on their partners or a mix of airlines and cities, which is when knowing where else to look becomes important.
1. Qantas, Emirates & oneworld airlines
Qantas.com
For travel on Qantas, its own search tool unsurprisingly is king. Log in using your frequent flyer number and you will be able to search for ‘Classic Flight Rewards’.
The Qantas site also includes most of its partners including American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific, Emirates, Fiji Airways, Japan Airlines, Malaysia Airlines, Qatar Airways and more. The site is a great first port of call if you are trying to use Qantas Points.
However, there are a few downsides to the Qantas tool. As you use it to search across multiple dates, you may quickly get frustrated with the way it displays mixed cabin results. It might look like a long multi-city flight is available in Business Class but, actually, it could be the short connecting flight in Business and the longer segment in Economy.
Note that you may have trouble finding and securing Business and First Class seats on these Qantas routes.
British Airways Executive Club
If you are looking to Qantas or other oneworld airline programs such as Asia Miles, another useful site is British Airways.
It shows availability for almost all oneworld airlines, including the actual number of reward seats left!
Obviously, the prices it shows in Avios will not match the Qantas Points requirement but it will give you some useful indicators of availability so you can check again on Qantas’ website.
SeatSpy & BA Redemption Tool
These two tools are super easy-to-use and the fastest way to access British Airways award space. They both show space for British Airways-operated flights only across the whole calendar at once.
SeatSpy can also be used to search for availability on Virgin Atlantic flights.
AA.com
The American Airlines AAdvantage website is very easy to use and you do not need an account to perform searches. This is the quickest way to search for availability on Qatar Airways, Japan Airlines and Cathay Pacific flights.
The main advantage of the AA website is that you can perform monthly searches, which can save a lot of time (compared to the Qantas and British Airways websites).
As you can see from this old search for a Qatar Airways First Class seat from Perth to Doha, there was availability on about half of the selected dates. Selecting ‘Non-stop only’ on the left-hand side will help to refine your searches.
Of course, if you find availability on the AA website and then want to use your Qantas Points for a booking, you will have to confirm availability on the Qantas website and then book through there.
Asia Miles
Asia Miles online redemptions are only available for Cathay Pacific, Air China, Alaska Airlines, British Airways, Finnair, Iberia, Japan Airlines, LATAM, Malaysia Airlines, Qantas, Qatar Airways, Royal Jordanian Airlines, S7 Airlines and SriLankan Airlines.
All other partners need to be booked with Asia Miles over the phone or by filling out this web-based Flight Award request form.
If looking for award availability on Cathay Pacific using your Qantas Points or otherwise, the availability through either Qantas or British Airways websites is the best place to start.
However, there have been ongoing problems with both sites showing ‘phantom’ availability where the seats show as available but can’t be booked. It’s frustrating, but nothing much can be done about it.
Japan Airlines Mileage Bank
Japan Airlines has a clunky website and you need to sign up for an account to search for award availability but it does display availability across a whole week, which is better than what the BA site does.
2. Virgin Australia and Velocity airline partners
The Virgin Australia website is the best place to research Virgin Australia award availability using your Velocity Points. Thankfully, its search tool is pretty good. The only thing I would wish for is a more robust, wider calendar view of availability.
Read our full guide to finding award seats with Virgin Australia
As of May 2021, Velocity hasn’t brought back international partner reward flights due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Previously, Velocity also allowed you to search for availability with Etihad, Singapore Airlines (all cabins except First Class) and Delta through its website.
3. Singapore Airlines & Star Alliance airlines
For award seats on Singapore Airlines, there are two tiers available: those available to KrisFlyer members (generally good) and those available to partners (not so great).
We are actually fairly well set up in Australia to earn KrisFlyer miles, with a number of linked credit card options. As a result, we get to use KrisFlyer miles for travel on Singapore Airlines and make the most of the additional award seat availability that they do not offer their partners.
Once you are logged into your account, you will need the ‘Redeem flights’ checkbox checked in the search. You can do a search across a seven-day period but only for Singapore Airline. Read more about flexible date searches. The available results are displayed for the day and week you searched for. You will need to look for Saver level availability to get the best deal.
You can search for and book Star Alliance partners such as ANA, THAI and Lufthansa as well as other partner award flights on the KrisFlyer website but I find the United search engine is easier to use. When you want to search across multiple dates, I find the award.flights tool easier and quicker to use (explored later on).
Also note that Lufthansa First Class is not available until it is within 15 days of the date you are travelling, which means that if you looking to travel more in advance than that, you will not be able to book an award seat. Aside from Lufthansa, other Star Alliance partners release their First Class awards in advance.
United.com
United is a US-based Star Alliance carrier and has one of the best ways to search for rewards seats on Star Alliance member airlines. When searching for a multi-segment flight (i.e. not nonstop) it is best to search one flight at a time. For example, Sydney to Singapore, and then Singapore to Tokyo.
4. Searching for award seats through independent tools and aggregators
On top of the airline websites themselves, there are then a few third-party aggregation and notification tools that site on top of the available award seat data and display them in more user-friendly ways.
Award Nexus
Award Nexus is one of the most complete solutions. For most airlines, it works by automating searches on the airline’s website itself or using other data it can get access to. It is a paid product starting at US$59, but well worth it for the time savings you’ll receive. If you are a member of FlyerTalk, you are eligible for a free community membership of Award Nexus.
It supports searching across both oneworld (through the British Airways, Qantas, Japan Airlines and Cathay Pacific sites) and Star Alliance (through Air Canada, ANA, United and Singapore Airlines in beta mode). SkyTeam is supported through Air France and Delta, with Virgin Australia available through the Delta search option. Alaska and Virgin Atlantic searches are also available.
The best thing about Award Nexus is that you can search across multiple dates, multiple classes of travel, multiple routes, and multiple alliances/ airlines in a single search. It is very powerful, and I couldn’t have booked some of my trips without it.
Given Award Nexus taps directly into Qantas’ website for results, you’ll also get results on partners including Jetstar, Emirates and Fiji Airways.
For more on which searches to use when, check out the very informative tips page. Read more in our full guide to using Award Nexus.
ExpertFlyer
ExpertFlyer is another subscription-based application for either US$5 or $10/month depending on how much you use it, and it fulfills a range of functions, including searches across seat maps, awards, upgrades and notifications.
It is less useful for award search than Award Nexus as there are limited airlines included and a clunkier interface to deal with, but it is useful as part of a wider toolkit to monitor seat availability and other information.
We have a comprehensive guide to using ExpertFlyer alerts for award and upgrade availability changes.
Award.flights Award Finder Chrome extension
This is a handy tool to go alongside the others I use to find award availability.
It is a Chrome web application run locally on your computer, is totally free, and allows you to run a breadth of searches across multiple airlines, cabins, dates and airports in the background whilst you do other things.
It currently supports searches through the following frequent flyer programs:
- Star Alliance: Air Canada Aeroplan, ANA Mileage Club and Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer
- oneworld: British Airways Executive Club, Japan Airlines Mileage Bank and Qantas Frequent Flyer
- SkyTeam: Air France-KLM Flying Blue
- Other: Etihad Guest
For all programs except Etihad Guest, you have to input your frequent flyer username and password. The application says that your personal information is stored locally on your computer and not transmitted but there is still a security risk in this. As such, you may choose to avoid using this tool or only linking programs with whom you have no/minimal points balances.
Not all search results may be 100% accurate but they are a good indication of what is available.
KVS Tool
This tool also deserves a mention. It is an inventory search (Windows) application, rather than a website. Check it out if you want to get really advanced. Mac users can find a workaround on the website.
Finding upgrade availability
Upgrade availability is a whole other beast to outright points seat availability. Each airline manages its upgrade inventory in different ways and it is hard to explain concisely how to monitor it. The only place to do so is using tools like Expertflyer or KVS Tool, and you will need to understand the specific fare codes and policies that each airline use and apply to their inventory for upgrades.
Summing up
Searching for reward seats is not easy, particularly for complex international itineraries. It takes patience, knowledge, and a fair bit of creativity to get what you are looking for on many occasions. 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.
This guide was updated by Brandon Loo.
Earning Points: First Principles
- Getting Started with Frequent Flyer programs
- Earning by Flying
- Buying points and miles
- Earning from Credit Cards
- Earning from Offers & Partners
- Ask Questions & Keep in the Loop
- Earning and Using Points – First Principles
Using Points: First Principles
- Who, What, When, Where and How?
- Planning
- Flexibility
- Tools
- Flexible Points Programs
- Maximising Points value
- Qantas and Virgin Australia Key Partners
- Searching for points seats
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?
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.
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.
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!
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
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
that quote is not correct