Savvy travelers have come to dread the word “devaluation” like nothing else, as carrier after carrier raises award rates, eliminating the best mileage redemptions and sweet spots. Yet more and more airlines are quietly turning to another method to stop points and miles aficionados from getting the most out of their miles: Technology.
Again and again and again, we've seen airlines prized for their valuable mileage programs make negative changes to their websites and award search engines. That makes it much harder for you and I to find that all-important award availability – the seats we can actually book with miles.
Here's what I mean:
- Virgin Atlantic Flying Club points can be invaluable whether you want a cheap lie-flat seat to London or to book Delta or Air France/KLM flights for fewer miles. But the airline has made that much harder by eliminating the option to pull up a five-week calendar view of award availability – and repeatedly axing workarounds to pull it up, too
- United's transition to a new award search engine last year was a major loss, as you can no longer filter to see only nonstop flights when looking at a calendar view of award tickets
- Finding Air France or KLM business class awards for 60,000 miles each way practically requires seeing a month-by-month calendar view, but the tricks to force its site to pull that up are hit or miss
- Qantas' website can be useful for pinpointing award availability on Oneworld airlines, but you can no longer instantly pull up a monthlong calendar of flights – you'll have to use the carrier's multi-city search to see that
- While not quite as obvious, other useful airlines have made their own consumer-unfriendly changes to their websites in recent months, including Emirates, Air France, Qatar Airways, and more
We've rounded up our own list of the best airline websites for finding that all-important award availability. There are two critical ingredients for making the cut:
- An award calendar to quickly look at a month (or more) of award space, and
- The ability to filter to see only nonstop flights
The number of sites that allow you to do both keeps shrinking … and it's hard not to think that's intentional. Ask yourself: When was the last time an airline's website relaunch or “enhancement” was actually an improvement for users? Spoiler alert: It was never.
And that's a real double whammy. Facing a record number of travelers piling up a record number of points, airlines have been clamming up, making it harder and harder to book their top-dollar seats using points. All the while, their changes on the technology front are making it harder to find what little award space is left.
With names like point.me or seats.aero, dozens of independent award search tools have emerged over the last few years, and they can help fill the gap. But none of them is perfect … plus, it may only be a matter of time before the airlines turn to technology again and crack down on just how effective these tools can be.
Examples Abound
So where does that leave us? How about an example about why this matters?
Previously, I'd always turn to Virgin Atlantic's powerful award search tool. It was one of the best in the world, making it easy to find, for example, a nonstop Air France business class award from Minneapolis-St. Paul (MSP) to Paris-Charles de Gaulle (CDG). That five-week calendar made it easy to pinpoint one of the few days I could book for 77,500 to 87,750 miles and just $5.60 in fees.
But with that functionality out the window, all I can see is a weeklong calendar with the option to scroll date by date. And because Virgin no longer allows you to search specifically for business class fares, virtually all of the results in that weeklong preview are in economy, anyway.
You can still trick Virgin into pulling up its older award search interface – price calendar and all – by heading straight to this link, filling out your route and dates, then switching the search over to a simple one-way. But really, that's just a sign of how far Virgin's award search tool has fallen. There's a handy Reward Seat Checker tool, but that only works for redemptions Virgin Atlantic planes – not partners like Delta or Air France.
Oh, and to top it all off, you have to use two-factor authentication just to log in and Virgin will automatically sign you out after a handful of searches, forcing you to start the process all over in order to resume the hunt. Fun!
Air France/KLM's own site hasn't gotten quite that bad, but the tricks to pull up a month-by-month calendar of award space – either by leaving the date blank or entering the last date on the calendar – seem to come and go.
As other platforms have gotten the axe, American Airlines' website remains the best … by far. You can quickly filter for nonstop flights, look only at business or first class fares, and click from month to month for an instant look at availability.
And while Delta SkyMiles may be more of a laughingstock, Delta.com's award search remains top tier with that exact same functionality, too. Then again, with no award chart to govern how many miles you need to book a flight from point A to point B and partner award redemption rates that match Delta's own absurdity, this view isn't exactly useful, is it?
Bottom Line
In a game of cat and mouse with points aficionados trying to get the better of them, airlines keep turning to technology.
Sure, these “enhanced” websites and new customer interfaces may look nicer … but carrier after carrier has stripped away some of the most important functionality from their award search tools. Ultimately, that just makes it harder for travelers to get the most out of their miles.