Are there sweet spots in airline award charts worth knowing?
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There are several recurring “sweet spots” in airline award charts that can dramatically stretch the value of your miles.
Classic sweet spots that consistently offer great value
- North America ↔ Europe for 45,000 miles round‑trip on ANA’s zone‑based chart Points with a Crew
- North America ↔ Oceania/Australia for 65,000 miles round‑trip on the same ANA chart Points with a Crew
- Business class to Europe for 45,000 miles one‑way on Turkish Miles & Smiles FrequentMiler
- Business class to the Middle East for 47,000 miles one‑way on Turkish Miles & Smiles FrequentMiler
- Economy class within the United States for just 7,500 miles one‑way (including Alaska and Hawaii) on Turkish Miles & Smiles FrequentMiler
- Business class within the United States for 12,500 miles one‑way on Turkish Miles & Smiles FrequentMiler
Region‑specific anomalies and low‑cost awards
- ANA business class between the U.S. and Japan/Asia for ≤ 90,000 miles round‑trip, a practical sweet spot because ANA releases extra space to its own members FrequentMiler
- Avianca LifeMiles: New York (JFK) → Zurich for 16,500 miles economy (vs. the listed 30,000) FrequentMiler
- Avianca LifeMiles: New York (JFK) → Lisbon for 35,000 miles business (vs. the listed 63,000) FrequentMiler
Why these sweet spots matter
- They let you travel premium cabins or long‑haul routes for a fraction of the typical mileage cost, freeing up miles for additional trips.
- Many programs keep these low‑cost awards on their “promotional” or “saver” tables, so they often require less cash surcharges and can be booked with fewer miles One Mile at a Time .
By focusing on these highlighted routes, you can maximize the mileage value across a variety of airlines and alliances.
Have Award Chart Devaluations Changed Your Travel Focus?
Reader Terence emailed me the other day to ask about a specific flight he was looking at booking, and in the email he mentioned something interesting as an afterthought: I’m also starting to shift my focus from inflight experiences to the destinations thanks to the latest round of devaluations. I thought that was oddly insightful. Now, I know some holier-than-though travelers will be along in the comments section shortly to proclaim that some people have been traveling “wrong” all along. In my opinion you’ve traveling right as long as you get enjoyment out of it, whatever form
The new zone-based ANA award chart
This is fast breaking news as I write, but ANA appears to be in the process of switching from a distance-based award chart to a region or zone-based award chart, effective April 12, 2015. Most airlines (like American, United, Delta, etc.) operate their awards based on regions or zones. So if you want to take a roundtrip ticket anywhere in North America, its 25,000 miles. Or anywhere in North America to anywhere in Europe is 30,000 miles (on American during peak). Currently, ANA along with British Airways and a few other carriers is DISTANE-based, so the cost of your award
Turkish demolishes its award chart
Yesterday, Prince of Travel flagged a near absolute obliteration of the Turkish Miles & Smiles award chart, with almost all awards massively increasing in price to the tune of 80% or more “overnight”. I put overnight in quotation marks because so far, I’m only seeing these prices in the new award chart — they aren’t yet reflected in search results on the website at the time of writing this post. And, oddly, Turkish is still publishing the old award chart. This much I can say with confidence: If you have Turkish miles stashed away for a rainy day, meteorologists are
Practical Sweet Spot Awards
The show must go on. After almost 3 years of Frequent Miler on the Air without missing an episode, I was determined to make it work this week despite some challenges on my end. Listen to this week’s “Giant Mailbag” stand-in for more on that and accept my apologies for unideal sound quality this week as we discuss our favorite practical sweet spots — those you can actually find available and that we have booked. Elsewhere on the blog this week, we’ve updated some excellent resources including our Marriott Bonvoy Complete Guide and some sweet spot best uses
Avianca LifeMiles sweet spots for award flights
Avianca LifeMiles is one of our favorite airline programs because of unique sweet spots, the ability to manipulate awards to pay fewer miles than the rates listed on the published award chart and the fact that it doesn’t add fuel surcharges. The purpose of this post is to provide an overview of the strengths of Avianca LifeMiles and also to serve as a reference when considering travel partners of the major transferable currencies. Avianca LifeMiles is a partner with many transferable points programs, which can be an easy way to accumulate miles. Standard transfer ratios are as follows: