The holiday season is fast approaching, and if you want the best deals, it’s time to start locking in your travel plans — whether you’re hitting the road for Thanksgiving, Christmas or New Year’s.
Airfare prices almost always spike around the holidays. But what about using points and miles to book holiday flights? Is it a good deal? And which programs have the best rates?
Most U.S. airlines have ditched their predictable award charts in favor of dynamic pricing — which means the number of points and miles you’ll need for a flight can fluctuate, much like a cash fare. And around the holidays, that can be bad news.
So, how are holiday redemptions looking in 2024? For the first time, we teamed up with our friends at Points Path to analyze over 7 million pieces of real-world flight search data for a first-of-its-kind holiday airfare report that’s just out this morning. For those not familiar with it, Points Path is a free browser extension that runs on Google Flights to show you the cash and award prices all in one step.
Compared with the rest of 2024, we found the average all-in value of airline miles toward booking flights is down about 6.47% over Thanksgiving, and by about 3.6% for the December holiday rush — meaning that during the peak holiday periods, your points and miles won’t go quite as far as they normally would.
Among the largest U.S. carriers, Alaska Airlines’ Mileage Plan miles proved most valuable during the holidays — but you’ll still spend more Alaska miles for a flight over the holidays than you would at other times of the year.
But it’s not all bad news. Interestingly, we found increased value in JetBlue TrueBlue points over the holidays versus the rest of this year — which didn’t prove true with any other airlines.
The data also showed that using your miles for first- and business-class seats actually increases the average return you get for them during the holidays versus the rest of the year — so ‘tis the season to splurge.
And keep in mind that most airlines charge minimal (or no) fees to cancel award tickets and redeposit miles if your plans change — or if you book now to lock in a redemption and then later find something with a better value.
Posts in this newsletter contains references to products from one or more of our advertisers. We may receive compensation when you click on links to those products, and this may impact how or where they appear. For an explanation of our Advertising Policy, visit this page.
Photo Credit: .
Together With
Take your travel photos to the next level
Now everyone can quickly and easily edit their photos on the go with Adobe Lightroom. Lightroom’s new Generative Remove tool is the most powerful yet, making it easy to remove distractions from your favorite travel moments.
You are receiving this email because you opted in atthepointsguy.com.
Where to find us:
The Points Guy 100 5th Ave., 16th Floor New York, NY 10011 USA USA
If this newsletter was forwarded to you, you can subscribe here.
Advertiser Disclosure:
The cards we feature here are from partners who compensate us when you are approved through our site, and this may impact how or where these products appear. We don’t cover all available credit cards, but our analysis, reviews, and opinions are entirely from our editorial team. Please view our advertising policy and product review methodology for more information.
Editorial Note: Opinions expressed here are the author’s alone, not those of any bank, credit card issuer, airlines or hotel chain, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities.
