Airlines Are Locking Up Their Best Award Seats

This Friday afternoon, let’s ponder the future of award travel and how the points earning and redemption strategies for premium cabin award travel are changing. This year especially, we’re seeing a specific pattern emerge in award availability, and we will have to adapt our strategies to keep winning.

Awards Restricted to Their Own Loyalty Program

This is the main pattern I’m seeing, and while it’s not quite “100% of the time”, my prediction is the trend will keep heading in that direction. It was once easy to say: transfer your points to Aeroplan, earn Aeroplan, then redeem Aeroplan with 30+ partners and mix and match on a single booking. While that’s technically still possible, booking anything outside of Lufthansa group is increasingly difficult these days.

And the fault doesn’t lie with Aeroplan: many airlines these days are simply restricting long-haul business and first class award space to members of its own loyalty program. From their perspective, this is a great way to increase engagement and remove some of their liability off the books. Furthermore, I’m pretty sure airlines receive only a modest payment when a partner program books an award seat on their flights.

If we look at ANA and EVA, by far the best way to book now is with their own loyalty program: this is the first year I’ve transferred Amex US Membership Rewards (MR) points to ANA Mileage Club. While booking EVA is nigh impossible on Aeroplan, there’s plenty of award space when booking with EVA Infinity MileageLands.

Even Lufthansa Group, we haven’t seen a single Lufthansa first class seat available on to partners since June 1. Whether this is a temporary glitch or a permanent policy change remains unclear, but it highlights how fragile partner access to premium awards can be.

No Lufthansa first class award space to be found

What was once “easy and reliable” to book Japan Airlines with Avios, now we’re seeing many awards already booked through JAL Mileage Bank before the Avios calendar even opens.

Elite Status Required

There are countless examples, but one trend has become increasingly common: airlines no longer limit premium award space to their own loyalty program—they also require Elite status to book it. It also makes sense: loyalty programs should be rewarding their most loyal members.

Emirates First Class once offered tremendous value through Alaska Mileage Plan (now Atmos Rewards). Today, Emirates requires Elite status and limits First Class awards exclusively to members booking through Skywards. While you can still technically book with Aeroplan, award space has largely dried up, even if you’re willing to pay the exorbitant rates.

United is the clearest example today: there was once ample Polaris award space available to partners, but now award space is largely available only to United MileagePlus members. Furthermore, you need both MileagePlus Elite status and a co-branded credit card to unlock award space and the best prices.

Not exactly requiring Elite status, but Air France KLM Flying Blue takes the entire thing one step further by offering “Extra Exclusive” cities on promo rewards only to those subscribed to buying miles. It’s not quite the same phenomenon, but it’s another example of airlines creating increasingly exclusive benefits within their own ecosystem.

Adapting Our Strategy

There’s two ways to continue winning in this climate: get better at hunting for unicorns and earn more flexible rewards.

It’s Harder, But Not Impossible

On the first point, many of the best sweet spots involve booking an airline with a partner’s frequent flyer program and while awards are being more restricted to their own loyalty program, it’s far from hopeless; for example, here are awards I’ve recently booked with partner miles:

• Etihad first class apartments from Abu Dhabi to London for 62,500 AAdvantage miles
• Aeromexico business class from Mexico City to Buenos Aires for 55,000 Flying Blue miles
• Turkish Airlines business class from Boston to Bishkek for 90,000 Aeroplan points
• LATAM business class from Buenos Aires to Miami for 75,500 Finnair Avios

Mexico City (MEX) – Buenos Aires (EZE) on Aeromexico business class for 55,000 Flying Blue miles + $135.10 CAD

All had very minimal fuel surcharges, which is a plus. None are “unicorns”, but finding award space does require frequent searching, setting alerts, and a good sprinkle of luck — especially for Turkish Airlines.

If you manage to nail down when award seats release/under what conditions seats release and also have a few days of flexibility, booking ANA with Aeroplan or Japan Airlines with Avios is very much in the cards.

Focus on Flexible Rewards

I want to be realistic with the examples above: it’s easier to book such awards when I only need one seat and am flexible on both departure date and the time of booking. I can book a flight the week before and take off on a Tuesday. For my family trip to China next August, I’m booking all four of us on Cathay Pacific using their Asia Miles program to reliably secure seats as far in advance as possible. Half the party will be in premium economy because Cathay only releases so many business class seats.

Therefore, bank currencies with multiple transfer partners are more important than ever: my Amex Membership Rewards (MR) once went exclusively to Aeroplan and now I’m even transferring to Etihad Guest (RIP on June 20). With Asia Miles, I can transfer both Amex MR and RBC Avion.

Needless to say, being able to access multiple different frequent flyer programs greatly increases your odds of booking a premium cabin seat in a climate where airlines are mostly releasing awards that way.

RBC Avion has fantastic travel partners

Don’t forget that Marriott Bonvoy is a flexible rewards currency: transferring to airlines gives Marriott points a consistent floor value when hotel redemptions are no longer a deal. Most transfers yield 25,000 miles for 60,000 Marriott points and United even gets 30,000 miles for 60,000 Bonvoy points. The latter is seriously a great deal when you consider how useful United MileagePlus is for Canadians and how 60,000 Bonvoy points pays for 1/3 of a night at a luxury hotel.

Takeaway

Premium cabin award travel isn’t dead, but the playbook is changing. Airlines increasingly reserve their best award space for members of their own loyalty programs and, in some cases, only for elite members. That makes it harder to rely on a single program like Aeroplan for all of your travels, even if it remains one of the best programs in Canada.

The winners over the next few years will be those who stay flexible. Bank currencies with multiple transfer partners are more valuable than ever, and being a jack-of-all-trades across several frequent flyer programs is becoming just as important as, if not more important than, mastering any one. The good news is that great redemptions still exist, but you’ll need a larger toolkit and a bit more effort.