Business class on a budget

I used to think that flying in a better class was only for high spenders.

And like most, I would have bought my economy light ticket through travel sites like Expedia, Kayak or an airline’s website. While simple and streamlined I didn’t know how much I was leaving on the table.

The world of flying has changed drastically because of credit card/airline points and the expansion of airline partnerships. They allow consumers to search for flights through multiple avenues and settle on a ticket that’s best. If played correctly, you can book business or first class flights for tens of dollars rather than thousands. Sounds too good to be true? Well, it isn’t. It takes just a little extra preparation, and effort, to capture the rewards that are out there.

Recently our family of four flew business class from Ho Chi Minh City to Seoul on Japan Airlines for just $45 USD/person. We did this by leveraging airline points that we got through our Alaska Airlines credit cards and using them to book an award ticket flight through Alaska’s OneWorld partner network.

As I mentioned in my previous post, Travel Like You Mean It, credit card points can open a world of possibilities during your travels. They are the key to traveling way above your budget without breaking it.

Look beyond what’s in front of you

All major airlines are part of partnership networks such as OneWorld (Alaska & American), Star Alliance (United), and SkyTeam (Delta). These partnerships allow you to use your domestic award miles on international carrier flights. (e.g. booking a Qantas award flight using American Airline miles as they are both OneWorld partners)

It’s these partnership networks that allow you to maximize your points/miles by uncovering high-value award flights for fewer miles. While these partner awards aren’t widely promoted you can find them on airline websites. Let me walk you through an example of how I booked our recent business class flight with JAL through Alaska Airlines.

All airline websites will allow you to search for award flight results separately. You’ll just need to set your search to receive miles/award results. As you can see below Alaska’s site has a radio button to display mile results.

Alaska’s site is a little better than others as they provide the ability to also see available award flights through an award calendar monthly view. Most airlines will provide you with a weekly view which will require you to conduct more searches to find availabilities.

Choose your date and then you’ll see all the available award flights, their respective partner airlines, and what ticket classes are available. As you can see not all partner awards are equal as some partner airlines will charge more than others.

Travel Tip: Make sure to check the details of your flight before booking! Some award tickets are “Mixed Cabin”. This means that parts of the flight will have different cabin classes. So part of the flight may be business/first and part of it will be economy. But the award ticket cost will still be charged as a full business/first class award ticket! Take your time and read through the flight details as not all airlines indicate mixed cabins, or other restrictions, as clearly as Alaska does.

There must be a better way

I know I went through tactically how to execute an award booking but I’m sure there’s still uncertainty on how to do this in the real life. Don’t let the unknown stop you. There are plenty of great resources out there to help you in your search.

Now one thing to know is not every flight on an airline partner is available for an award booking. This is because airlines will only open up a select number of seats to be booked with partner award miles. It may sound daunting but there are strategies and tools that you can use to help you in your search!

There are plenty of sites out there that will help you scour the web for the availability data you’re looking for. Sites like ExpertFlyer (Paid), Award Hacker (Free), and Point.me (Paid) are sites that let you conduct your searches easier by allowing you to search broadly for award flight availabilities. They also inform you what credit card points can be transferred to what airlines so that you can see all the options when looking to execute on that award flight.

Of the three sites, I use Point.me because it has the best real-time award flight information compared to the others. It costs $12/month but if you search on Google you should be able to find coupons for free day passes of $1 for your first month.

In addition to the real time results Point.me also displays the points required, the taxes and fees that need to be paid, and also the possible credit card point transfers available. They even incorporate real time transfer bonus offers that credit cards will implement from time to time.

As you can see this business class flight shows Asia Miles as a potential award booking option but shows you that British Airways also has the ability to book the award. You can see how each partner has different miles requirements for the same flight. This is why it’s good to use sites like Point.me because they do the leg work of searching all the potential partners that you can book award flights with and providing all the data you need to book the award at the lowest rate.

The taxes and fees will also be different as certain airlines pass along fuel surcharges and others do not. These fuel surcharges can sometimes be a difference of hundreds of dollars. British Airways is one of the airlines that is known for having much higher taxes and fees than other airlines.

Travel Tip: Seat availability will be one of the biggest obstacles when searching for award flights. Generally, award flights will become available when airlines need to fill seats on flights that have higher vacancies. Most availability will be shown 12 months out or, on the flip side, close to your desired flight date. That doesn’t mean there will be nothing available if it’s outside of those timeframes.

From my experience, award availability changes almost every day and sometimes hourly. Although a bit time-consuming, if you need flights for a specific date, searching for them as early as possible is best. If you see a flight that fits your needs I recommend acting quickly as they will get booked up. If you don’t see what you want because your dates aren’t as flexible I would recommend waiting and checking periodically as availability changes all the time. I’ve had more than one occasion where the desired flights I wanted weren’t available and then just 1-2 weeks later they were there.

The right value for you

Elle excited to enjoy her first business class flight

Booking an award flight is an amazing way to enhance your travels while maintaining your budget. It’s up to you on how you want to use your points but it’s always good to see if the cash price for the flight is cheaper than the value of using points/miles. The value of each point/mile is based on its CPP (Cents Per Point) value. This is calculated by:

(Current cash price of the flight divided - Award tickets taxes + fees) / Total award points require)

The flight we booked with JAL would normally have cost $846/per person. We used 25,000 Alaska Airlines miles + $45 (Taxes and Fees) each instead. Alaska Airlines points generally have a CPP of 1.8 but this flight allowed us to get a CPP value of 3.2! ($846 - $45)/25,000 points. Any time you can beat the average CPP of your points/miles you’re winning at the game. If your CPP is less than the average value I think it’s generally better to book with cash but that’s just my opinion.

The way you choose to use your points/miles is completely up to you and you shouldn’t feel the need to always maximize the value as you may have to compromise what you may really want/need and possibly add undue stress to your booking process. You can’t always look to maximize the CPP because sometimes getting the right flight that fits your availability is more important.

Overall, I hope what you take away from this post is that points/miles can potentially provide you extra benefits for that vacation trip you’ve been looking forward to. As this is just one way to utilize them, I hope this inspires you to learn more about how points/miles might benefit you in the future. Feel free to comment below with any questions or thoughts you may have and happy travels to you all.

ByeanVoyage Disclaimer: Content on ByeanVoyage represents our expert experience, opinion, and subjective perspective. Reader's experience may vary due to many factors. The content provided is for informational and entertainment purposes only, and should not be considered financial, tax, or legal advice.