As with most things, there are probably 100 ways to go about doing this as well but I am sharing what I usually follow and it often gets things done. Your mileage (literally) may vary, however, this should give you a general idea of how to get started.
For the sake of simplicity let I will assume that you already have a destination in mind. So let’s consider I want to fly to New York (JFK) and my origin is Mumbai. (BOM)
Step 1: Find out the number of miles you require to make this journey across the various loyalty programs that exist. In order to do this, go to https://www.awardhacker.com/ and enter the From, To, and other details. like cabin class etc.
Tip: Check out miles requirement across multiple airports if any in a particular city. For example, if I want to fly to New York, there are 3 major airports that I could fly into - JFK, EWR, LGA. So in the To field, I will enter all these airports. However, I am only open to flying from BOM so that remains constant. You will see something like this.
As can be seen, the lowest miles requirement for business class in this route is 62.5K Alaska Miles for a flight on Cathay.You may have to repeat this search on a few different other sites as well because award hacker does not necessarily show the miles required for ALL Loyalty programs out there. Another alternative is http://milez.biz/.
Now in my case here, 62.5K is the lowest for Alaska, followed by 70K on American Advantage miles.
Step 2: Looking for actual availability.
Now just because some program offers the lowest redemption requirement does not necessarily mean that you will have award availability on them.
In some cases there will be no award availability, in some cases, the airline may not be operating that route at all.
To check actual availability the two tools that I use are AwardLogic (https://awardlogic.com/) and ExpertFlyer (https://www.expertflyer.com/). Unfortunately, both of them are paid if you want to use the advanced feature but they both offer free trials for some days that you can use when looking to book. You can also let me know if you want me to look for anything I have access to both of them and will try my best to help.
Moving on to AwardLogic, I enter the same details as in step 1 and search for availability.
Keep in mind availability greatly varies depending on your dates and there is no way to search availability for the entire month on AwardLogic, so you will need to enter the different dates and repeat the searches.
For searching multiple airports in a city, enter the name of the city instead of the airport code, e.g New York instead of JFK. You will see something like this.
As you can see it shows loads of options with multiple connection options, along with the different programs through which you can book and transfer points. On the left side, you can select the programs where you have points or miles or from which you can transfer to a certain program to book the ticket. You can also put in further filters like the number of stops, etc. So in my case, I enter the following filters:
As you can see I can book Air India BOM - DEL - EWR with 56,340 Miles through the LifeMiles program and it also tells me that I can transfer that amount to LifeMiles from the different bank/card points. Please note that in this example the MR points being referred to are that of the US. For India, you will need to divide or multiple based on the ratio.
I also get a second option which is BOM - DOH - JFK on Qatar using 70,000 AA miles. Which is what I want to choose over flying AI. (This is a personal preference.)
AwardLogic also shows you the approximate amount of tax that is required for a particular reward redemption.
Step 3: Make the actual bookings.
Click on the flight that you want to choose and hot on Select Flight, on the next page AwardLogic will give you the exact steps required for making the booking, as follows:
Hope this helps. Happy to answer any questions or if anyone has anything to add or expand into this, feel free to do so.
Cheers! 🥂
For the sake of simplicity let I will assume that you already have a destination in mind. So let’s consider I want to fly to New York (JFK) and my origin is Mumbai. (BOM)
Step 1: Find out the number of miles you require to make this journey across the various loyalty programs that exist. In order to do this, go to https://www.awardhacker.com/ and enter the From, To, and other details. like cabin class etc.
Tip: Check out miles requirement across multiple airports if any in a particular city. For example, if I want to fly to New York, there are 3 major airports that I could fly into - JFK, EWR, LGA. So in the To field, I will enter all these airports. However, I am only open to flying from BOM so that remains constant. You will see something like this.
As can be seen, the lowest miles requirement for business class in this route is 62.5K Alaska Miles for a flight on Cathay.You may have to repeat this search on a few different other sites as well because award hacker does not necessarily show the miles required for ALL Loyalty programs out there. Another alternative is http://milez.biz/.
Now in my case here, 62.5K is the lowest for Alaska, followed by 70K on American Advantage miles.
Step 2: Looking for actual availability.
Now just because some program offers the lowest redemption requirement does not necessarily mean that you will have award availability on them.
In some cases there will be no award availability, in some cases, the airline may not be operating that route at all.
To check actual availability the two tools that I use are AwardLogic (https://awardlogic.com/) and ExpertFlyer (https://www.expertflyer.com/). Unfortunately, both of them are paid if you want to use the advanced feature but they both offer free trials for some days that you can use when looking to book. You can also let me know if you want me to look for anything I have access to both of them and will try my best to help.
Moving on to AwardLogic, I enter the same details as in step 1 and search for availability.
Keep in mind availability greatly varies depending on your dates and there is no way to search availability for the entire month on AwardLogic, so you will need to enter the different dates and repeat the searches.
For searching multiple airports in a city, enter the name of the city instead of the airport code, e.g New York instead of JFK. You will see something like this.
As you can see it shows loads of options with multiple connection options, along with the different programs through which you can book and transfer points. On the left side, you can select the programs where you have points or miles or from which you can transfer to a certain program to book the ticket. You can also put in further filters like the number of stops, etc. So in my case, I enter the following filters:
Then I am left with this:
As you can see I can book Air India BOM - DEL - EWR with 56,340 Miles through the LifeMiles program and it also tells me that I can transfer that amount to LifeMiles from the different bank/card points. Please note that in this example the MR points being referred to are that of the US. For India, you will need to divide or multiple based on the ratio.
I also get a second option which is BOM - DOH - JFK on Qatar using 70,000 AA miles. Which is what I want to choose over flying AI. (This is a personal preference.)
AwardLogic also shows you the approximate amount of tax that is required for a particular reward redemption.
Step 3: Make the actual bookings.
Click on the flight that you want to choose and hot on Select Flight, on the next page AwardLogic will give you the exact steps required for making the booking, as follows:
Hope this helps. Happy to answer any questions or if anyone has anything to add or expand into this, feel free to do so.
Cheers! 🥂
