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| SEARCH FOR AWARD SPACE AND UPGRADES |
| by Brian Kelly |
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![TPG | Hero Image]() |
Today I’m sharing my favorite paid tools for finding award availability, but the first step for any points collector is to track all your points in one spot, and that’s exactly what the free TPG App does (download it here if you don’t haven’t already). We give you your net worth in points, and we’ll be rolling out a ton of new features soon.
As the cost of travel continues to skyrocket, it’s more important than ever to harness your frequent flyer miles to save — especially if you want to fly in first or business class. However, more people are in the points and miles game than ever before, so you can’t assume that you’ll find the cheapest award inventory just by randomly checking on any given day. You need to be clever and flexible — and to those who put in the work, go the best rewards.
For example, I want to go to Europe in August with three other people, and rates on the major U.S. airlines are 250,000 miles each way (and up!). However, this past week I took advantage of Air France Flying Blue’s latest Promo Rewards from Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR) to Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport (CDG) and booked four one-way business-class tickets for 41,250 miles and $209 each (plus, I used Bilt’s incredible one-day 100% transfer bonus, so I only needed 20,625 Bilt points per ticket). It was such a great redemption value. Full disclosure: I am an adviser and investor in Bilt.
Here are a few of the online tools I use when searching for award space and upgrades:
ExpertFlyer
ExpertFlyer is the original premium-award search tool. I love it so much, and TPG’s parent company Red Ventures now owns it. It offers the ability to not only search for award inventory, but to set seat alerts. If you’re ever booked on a flight with no good seats, set an alert so if an exit row, aisle or bulkhead seat opens up, you can snag it.
ExpertFlyer currently offers three plans: a free account and two premium accounts. Each account has access to different features — here’s a quick overview:- Free: Set an alert to notify you when a more desirable seat opens up on your flight. You’re limited to one free alert at a time, though you can add more for $0.99 each.
- Basic ($4.99 per month): Offers additional features, such as award and upgrade inventory search and flight availability (including fare buckets). You can set four seat alerts simultaneously, but you’re limited to 250 queries per month.
- Premium ($9.99 per month, or $99.99 per year): Includes flexible search options, unlimited queries, 200 seat alerts at a time, aircraft-change alerts and the ability to create flight alerts when inventory opens up.
Point.me
Point.me is a great award search engine, similar to ExpertFlyer and perhaps a little more comprehensive in that it pulls from 33 loyalty programs and 100 airlines. It can also pull in options based on your credit card transfer program (like American Express, Chase and Bilt). In fact, Bilt members get a version of the tool for free in the Bilt app.
The cost is $5 for a one-time use, or you can sign up for a premium plan and pay $12 monthly or $129 annually.
Seats.aero
Seats.aero is a clever tool that allows you to search by city pairs and displays award seat availability on long-haul, international flights. It searches for open award space every few hours, and results are provided for up to two months in advance. It’s free for the basic version and $7.99 monthly for the Pro version, which allows you to search up to a year in advance on longer routes, have unlimited alerts and receive SMS notifications if award space is located for you.
I’ve just started using it to search for Delta One and Qatar Qsuite space, and overall I like the interface, even if it takes a little getting used to.
Roame.travel
An interesting tool I found out about on Instagram recently is roame.travel. It’s new, so it doesn’t have as many features as some of the other sites, but it is free, so you might as well try it out and add it to your arsenal as I expect it will get better over time. Here’s a Reddit thread on the tool featuring input from the founders.
HotelSlash
While not related to air travel, I did want to mention a new site that launched with a membership model — HotelSlash can help you find cheaper hotel rates (it’s the sister brand to AutoSlash, which has been an industry favorite for finding cheaper rental car deals after you book). The annual membership is $29.95 and lets you search over 1 million hotels globally and will send you alerts if the price drops on your booking or if a room upgrade becomes available.
Have a great weekend,
BK
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