There’s nothing quite like booking a lie-flat seat using points instead of forking over $3,000 or more. But it’s no slam dunk: Finding award availability to book business class seats can be a chore. So this week on the Thrifty Traveler Podcast, Gunnar and Kyle give you a playbook for finding the flights you want, including which airlines stand out for being easiest to book and some evergreen tips to maximize your chances of finding a lie-flat seat. Plus, Kyle brags about his low points balances and answers the toughest “On the Spot” question yet.
There’s nothing quite like booking a lie-flat seat using points instead of forking over $3,000 or more. But it’s no slam dunk: Finding award availability to book business class seats can be a chore. So this week on the Thrifty Traveler Podcast, Gunnar and Kyle give you a playbook for finding the flights you want, including which airlines stand out for being easiest to book and some evergreen tips to maximize your chances of finding a lie-flat seat. Plus, Kyle brags about his low points balances and answers the toughest “On the Spot” question yet.
Thanks to our sponsor, Monarch! Go to Monarch.com and use code “THRIFTY” to get your first year of Monarch Core half off at just $50!
Join the conversation! Sign up for the free Thrifty Traveler Podcast Slack community today.
00:00 - What’s Kyle’s lowest points balance?
00:50 - How far in advance does Kyle book biz class?
02:40 - Richie welcomes us back from Guam!
03:10 - Sweet spots & tips for finding business class award availability
18:45 - Thanks to our sponsor, Monarch Money!
20:10 - The easiest biz class seats you can actually book with points
47:45 - Listener Question: Where to start for a family Euro trip
50:40 - Kyle chooses a biz class to book … with a catch!
Related Links:
Booking Qatar QSuites for others
Produced and edited by Sylvia Thomas
Video editing by Kyle Thomas
Show music: “All That” by Benjamin Tissot
Yo, welcome to the show. I am your host, Gunnar, and with me as always, he's got the lowest points balances in the game because he's been getting so dang booksie, it's Kyle Potter. Kyle, welcome to the show. Thank you for that very thoughtful compliment. What's your lowest points balance right now? Uh, it's definitely Jal, Jal Mileage Bank with six. I am also, however, down to, like, 2,500 Amex Membership Rewards, which is the lowest it's been in many, many, many years. Okay, I wanna- I'm very proud of it If, if everybody here is in the podcast Slack group, I wanna see, take a screenshot of your lowest points balance over zero. I wanna see who's got the lowest one. I, I wanna see some ones out there. What's, what's the prize for the winner? Uh, the trip that you took, the trip that you are taking 'cause you've already booked something incredible. That's a good one. I thought you were saying they were gonna come on my trip, and I was like, "No, no, no, no, no." All right, today on the show, we're going over the best business class flights that you can actually book, not the unicorns or the too-good-to-be-true redemptions. It's the deals that typically have widespread award availability so you can actually, or at least somewhat easily, get them booked, use your points and miles to book them. But before that, we're gonna start with a few broader trends and sweet spots that you should look for when you're trying to find business class award availability. One of them, spoiler alert, Kyle, is, uh, to book way out in advance or at the very last minute. So Kyle, I wanna find something out. What's the earliest and latest you've ever booked a business class flight, and what were they? Uh, earliest, furthest out is exactly 361 days, which I did last week when I booked, uh, two Iberia business class seats from, in this case, DC Dulles to Madrid, uh, for next fall. My wife and I are going to a friend's wedding, uh, just outside of Dublin, so gonna cross the Atlantic and then make our way up into Ireland, and we booked that at exactly 7:00 PM Eastern Time, um, which is when the airline, in this case, Iberia, loads the next day's flights as far out in the calendar as they do, which was the key because right at 7:00 PM Eastern, that's when I saw that those flights were available. Uh, latest, uh, closest in, uh, exactly four days before departure, Lufthansa first class. I already had some business class seats booked, uh, to get over to Italy, uh, for our friend's w- another friend's wedding, uh, in 2021. Unfortunately, you can no longer do this. Lufthansa first class is not bookable unless if you have Lufthansa miles, and, you know, none of us really have those. But, uh, yeah, it really came down to the wire. That's the way that it worked until it stopped working period. Yeah, I think my closest in one was also about four days before travel, and I got a really good deal on some business class flights over to Croatia, so easy way to do it. Today on the show, we're showing you the best business class flights you can actually use your points and miles on, and we're gonna show you the best tips and tricks to do it, all that and more. Hi, I'm Richie, coming to you from Fort Nuestra Señora de la Soledad on the beautiful island of Guam, and welcome back to the Thrifty Traveler podcast. Okay, welcoming us back to the show this week was Richie from Guam. What a view, Richie. Thank you so much for sending in your video. Before we get into the specific redemptions for these business class flights, I wanna start with some trends, tips, and some sweet spots we regularly see for finding this award availability. Uh, this can help you kinda no matter where you're going, and the first one we- I've already hinted at. When booking most business class awards, you wanna follow what I'm calling the Ricky Bobby rule. If you're not first, you're last. Do you like this or am I fired? Can it be both? Okay, good. Um, all right, in almost every case on this list that we're gonna get into later in the episode, you're gonna wanna have your points and miles ready to book as soon as the calendar opens so you're first. Uh, 361 days ahead of travel, sometimes a, a little bit, you know, here or there for different airline programs. But if that doesn't work, you wanna have some points and miles ready at the very last minute, too, within about two weeks of travel. Why, why is it like this? Well, I mean, e- everything in the name of airlines is trying to maximize revenue, and so they resort to these kind of patterns where at the very end of the calendar, you know, whether it's 330 days out, 361 days out, whatever the case may be, airlines may decide, "You know what? We're just gonna release two business class seats." And for many, many years, you know, probably up until, let's call it three, four years ago, you didn't need to look that far out. You could s- look, say, nine or 10 months out because, you know, maybe you get, wouldn't get the exact date that you wanted, but there would still be plenty of award availability looking eight to 10 months out, let's say. Now, increasingly, as more people are doing this, all of those seats are getting gobbled up basically the moment that they, that they go online, you know, whether that's, again, 330 days out, 361, whatever. And so it's not enough to just plan kind of far in advance, 10, 11 months out. You gotta plan as far in advance as you can if you even want a shred of a hope of booking whichever airline releases those two or four or, in some cases, more business class seats. Because if you wait until a couple of days after those flights go online, you're probably not gonna find anything, period. And then finally, you know, in that last, you know, let's call it two-week stretch before departure, this really was the gold standard for a long time, and it still kind of is, but it's not as common because airlines will just look at their schedules, they'll look at their cabins and say, "You know what? We've got a lot of business class seats available still. Let's release some of these to awards." The problem now is, increasingly, there's not a lot of business class seats still open because people are increasingly paying for them, so there are fewer seats in that, that kinda last-minute bucket to go around. It's still there. It's the perfect case of it's not something you should bank on. You should follow your strategy, Gunnar, which is book something that's gonna work, and then as it gets into that final stretch, that's when you really start searching to see if there is something that's opened up where you can book that business class seat that you really wanted. Yeah, when I was talking about the Croatia trip, we had a totally refundable, uh, economy award already booked, and then in the last two weeks before travel, I started searching every day on a few different websites just to see if something better would pop up. It did. We transferred the points, and we booked it. But having something b- I mean, booking at the last minute is not really a strategy unless you're okay just not going So I, I would say that's not a good booking strategy. 361 days in advance is really your best window there. Um, I wanna talk about another big trend we've seen lately, and it's new. Uh, it's specific to United Airlines and their credit cards. So as a United Airlines Chase credit card holder, you get more expanded access to what we call Saver Award availability, which are those least expensive points and miles bookings that we all really love. Um, when we talk about the rates at which you can book some of these business classes, we're always talking about these Saver Awards, and United cards have just kinda changed the game on all of this, right? Yeah, I mean, it's introduced this new angle of, you know, what we've talked about before, which is this pay-to-play mindset that airlines are increasingly adopting, where if you want to book the best awards, and es- especially if you want to book business class, having one of the airline's co-branded cards or status or both is increasingly the way to be able to do this, period. And that is, I mean, United is the poster child of this right now, where, you know, you can search across an entire calendar for basically worldwide, looking for a decent deal on a United Polaris business class seat using United miles, and you're not gonna find anything. Or you can look trying to redeem, as we have for years, using Air Canada Aeroplan miles or Avianca LifeMiles, trying to book those same United Polaris business class seats to Europe, to Asia, wherever, and you're not gonna find anything, period, because they are reserving all of that for their cardholders, where, you know, instead of paying 200,000 United MileagePlus miles for a one-way to Europe, you can book that for 80,000 United MileagePlus miles if you see this expanded, uh, award inventory, if you have one of these United cards. But then it goes even further, where you get a 10% discount, so that goes down to 72, and if you have a United card and status, it goes down to 68,000 miles for that same one-way to Europe This is maybe the newest out wrinkle in how we're trying to figure out how to play this game as airlines kinda wise up to what we've been up to these last four or five years, and United is not gonna be the last one to do something like this. Yeah, in our last episode where we recorded with Zach Griff, we talked about this kinda new pay-to-play credit cards landscape. So go back and listen to that discussion and we can tell you exactly how we feel about all of it. Spoiler alert, we feel both good and bad about it. It's kinda exciting to see lower rates like that, but also it's annoying that we have to get a, pick up a credit card just to get the best rate. Yeah, and I, I wanna be clear, just because you have a United credit card doesn't mean you're going to be able to book every single United Polaris business class seat, period. It's not that easy. It's still kinda fleeting. You need to be very flexible in order to find these deeply discounted awards, but they are out there. So if flying United business class is on your radar or if you just believe that that's gonna be your best option, you kinda need a credit card in order to make it happen now. Yeah. Okay. Uh, for this next one, Kyle, I'm just gonna preemptively slide you the Canada button, the- Very gracious of you ... I'm self-reporting. Uh, there's gonna be some Canada talk here, and that is because I am delighted to announce, Kyle, that one of the smartest things- I've never, I've never seen you so happy in my entire life One of the smartest things that you can do to find business class award availability is to aim for our beautiful neighbors to the north in Canada. And I'm not talking about flights to Canada, although Ca- Just my hand is hovering- How- ... on the button ... how nice would it be to book a, a little positioning week up in Toronto or in Montreal before you head overseas on your business class flight? I mean, that's the stuff of dreams. A little poutine, couple Labatts You're excited too. No way. I can see how excited you are. Um, the reason for this is there is always significantly more availability on foreign airlines departing Canada than the US, and even some really cheap cash rates, like some really cheap business class cash rates too. Uh, the reason why, Canadians just don't earn points and miles like we do in the US. They don't have the same kinda, uh, credit card options to do the same, and they also just, they spend less on those cards as well. So that paired with there's just a little bit less corporate travel leaving Canada, and that leaves a lot of the front of the plane open. Um, we've seen a ton of great availability to Europe on all sorts of kinda foreign airlines. Um, we've seen cash rates like flying TAP Air Portugal to Lisbon, Porto, and the Azores for $1,536 US round trip. That's an unbelievable deal for a round trip in business class. That's like $2,000 off of what it would typically cost from any US airport. Yeah, exactly. I mean, we s- we also saw, going the other way, cash fares to Hong Kong from $2,600 round trip in peak summer from, uh, Vancouver and from Toronto as well. And then there's this evergreen deal that's, uh, uh, Montreal to Casablanca on Royal Air Maroc for $1,860 round trip. It's almost evergreen. It, it pops up several times a year, and we love sending that deal to our members too, 'cause that is also, uh ... Anything less than $2,000 round trip in business class to Europe is, or across the Atlantic, is a really, really solid deal. Yeah. Uh, it's, it's a really important shout. I have to give you credit. Um, I haven't pushed the Canada button yet. I'm still thinking about it It, I think especially for people who live on the East Coast and that are trying to get to Europe who can fly from somewhere like Boston or New York to Toronto really quickly, or maybe Montreal, or maybe the single best one is Ottawa, which is a relatively small airport, at least in the grand scheme of major airports in Canada, but has a ton of Air France and Ca- or I think just Air France availability flying over to Europe a- at saver rates that we just don't see from the United States very often anymore. So it's, uh, especially if you can connect up to Canada, it's, you know, you have to follow all of the rules around, you know, making sure you leave yourself a long enough buffer. That buffer should really be quite a bit longer than what you would do if you were just connecting from, say, the Midwest over to the East Coast in order to catch that business class flight over to Europe. But man, if you can make this work, it is definitely worth checking out Canada, especially if you can't find, you know, the business class availability that you're looking for from departing from the US. Yeah. Okay, I'm gonna do a quick 35 minutes on my stopover. Okay, no stopover itinerary for Montreal. You'll have to get that in a bonus episode. If you, if I hear the words Yellowknife out of you- ... you are done here. Yeah, you're not gonna find a lot of availability out of Yellowknife. Uh, if you do, please hit us up, podcast@thriftytraveler.com. I'm desperate to see it. Um, another tip here, Kyle, and this kinda combines a little bit with the Canada stuff, but especially if you're gonna look at off the beaten path airlines, you're gonna find better availability than you do on American, Delta, and United in most cases. So I'm talking about airlines like, uh, Discover. I'm talking about LOT Polish Airlines, TAP Air Portugal like we mentioned, Royal Air Maroc like we mentioned. Going the other way, Philippine Airlines as well, and then, you know, even on airlines like Austrian. Um, these lesser-known airlines are gonna help you find better availability because fewer Americans are searching for availability on these airlines most of the time. Yeah, I'd add Air Serbia to that list as well. When the common thread here is, is that, you know, if your main goal is, say, just to get over to continental Europe or to get over to Asia And you're willing to check out a new city that maybe wasn't on your radar for at least a couple of days en route to your final destination, one of these airlines is gonna be a much safer bet than, you know, the big, certainly the big three here in the United States. But, you know, all of their major foreign partners, like Lufthansa and Swiss for United, and, you know, British Airways to a lesser extent, and Iberia and others for American, and certainly Air France and KLM and Virgin for Delta, these are worth checking out. Um, booking them can be a little bit more difficult, in part because some of them partner with more of these major US airlines in the big alliances than others, but th- there's definitely some value here. What's the most obscure airline you've ever flown up front with? You know what? I, uh, I guess it would have to be Hong Kong Airlines, uh, because they're not part, you know, they're certainly not a major global airline. Uh, they've shrunk to the point where I think they only have one nonstop to, um, North America anymore. I think it goes to Vancouver. They cut both LA and San Francisco, but, you know, when a business class mistake fare comes through for $560 instead of 5,600, you, you just book it. Yeah. Okay, our, our last tip here, um- Is on what we would call our nerd alerts. If you're a Thrifty Traveler Premium member, you know what our nerd alerts are. That just means that, that these flights don't necessarily always touch US soil. So it would be a business class flight operated wholly outside of the US or North America. And then a lot of them are on what we call fifth freedom routes. Uh, can you explain to our listeners what a fifth freedom route is? It's kind of a, a wrinkle on this nerd alert concept where it's an airline's route that doesn't touch one of its major hubs. Um, so the, the, the poster child of this is an airline like Emirates, which has a ton of fifth freedom routes, uh, to and from the United States that don't go to its hub in Dubai, but go from, say, JFK to Milan in Italy, or from Newark to Athens, or from Miami down to Bogota, and then even Mexico City, I think, to Barcelona. So they have a ton of these, um, that are really goofy, but because the travel demand just isn't quite the same, uh, there tends to be at least, not always, but in many cases, greater award avail- availability on some of these routes than you would find on some of their marquee routes to and from their hubs and connecting back to the United States. Yeah, Singapore has two interesting ones. They have, uh, Los Angeles to Tokyo Narita, and they also have JFK to Frankfurt. Um, we also talked a little bit about this one, this, uh, LAX to Tahiti on Air France, uh, w- that Japan Airlines deal that is unfortunately now deceased, but- RIP RIP, one of the best ones. Um, you mentioned there's a lot down in South America. There's solid availability on lots of those, including, uh, Swiss first class between, what is it, Buenos Aires and Rio, Buenos Aires and São Paulo. I think it's one of those two, but anyway. One of those two. Yeah, you can find really good rates and availability on those flights as well. Um, yeah, they, they exist all over the world. We find availability on them from time to time. We always send them as nerd alerts. Uh, we've also had nerd alerts, for instance, to find, uh, business class availability from Helsinki to Tokyo on Finnair business class for 63,000 Finnair Avios each way. We had one from Paris to Madagascar in Air France business class for 60,000 miles each way, and so on and so forth. We've, we've seen tons of them, but those are also really good ways with much better availability typically, again, because they're not getting a ton of American searches and bookings all the time, so you're looking for, uh, good availability on those ones as well. Yeah, whether you're using cash or points, flying from outside of the United States, so, you know, say from within Asia or from Europe down to South Africa, for example The rates tend to be a lot better. You know, my wife and I were hopping around Southeast Asia earlier this year, and Emirates, uh, flies from Hong Kong to Bangkok and back. And so in order to get from Bangkok back to Hong Kong to return home to the United States, the cost of business class was, at the time, less than 350 bucks, which was, like, less than $100 more than an economy ticket. So I was like, "You know what? My wife and I will definitely fly on an A380 and go back to the bar for a couple hours for a cool bucket list experience." Those are not prices that you're gonna see flying to and from the U.S. One of my favorites that I just found last week was Qantas flies nonstop from Auckland all the way over to Perth in, like, far northwestern Australia. That's nearly a seven-hour flight. It's actually a little bit more than seven hours. It's almost eight. And you can book that for 25,000 American Advantage miles. So if you need to get from Auckland to Perth or you just want to fly for seven hours in business class in a lie-flat seat, that's a pretty darn good way to do it, again, for rates that you're not really gonna see anywhere touching U.S. soil. You always forget how massive that part of the world is. It's huge. That's a seven-plus-hour flight. Yeah, the maps just don't do it justice. I think there are a lot of really good tips there that people can follow if they wanna start searching for business class seats that they can actually book, but we're gonna give them some concrete examples. We're gonna go airline by airline of all the best airlines you can book using your points and miles, but first, we're gonna take a quick break All right. It's time for The Extra Mile where we dig a little deeper on an important travel topic and it's inspired, as always, by our awesome Extra Mile newsletter. It hits your inboxes every weekday morning giving you the latest news, some fun deep dives and much more. Sign up today at thriftytraveler.com/extramile. This week on The Extra Mile we are giving you a look at what business class flights you can actually book with points and miles. There's no such thing as a sure thing in award travel, Kyle, and especially not in business class, but these are gonna be some of your best bets, right? That's what we're trying to do. And I, I think this merits a massive caveat that by the time this episode comes out this list may well have changed. Uh, this list has changed since we did a version of this episode just, like, less than a year ago. This list has changed since every single time I've talked about it to anybody in award travel who asks, like, "Where should I look if I really wanna f- fly a lie-flat business class seat and I'm just struggling to find award availab- availability? Where are the sure bets?" And the reality is, is that it's constantly changing, and even with these you still really need to be flexible. These are the airlines that are more generous with award availability where, you know, you can, can reliably find a seat, but that may still mean that you need to be pretty flexible on dates and even increasingly on which U.S. airport that you're trying to fly from or maybe even go up to Canada like we talked about before. But regardless, these are the ones that are actually quite possible to book. Maybe not quite easy, but possible. Yeah. I think the first example we'll start with is Finnair business class. Uh, Finnair has that kinda funky unique business class that, where the, the seat is just like one big shell. It doesn't recline necessarily. It turns into a full lie-flat seat, but they're just very spacious, big, comfortable plush shells, uh, flying to and from Helsinki and several U.S. gateways. To book this reliably you need to book 361 days in advance, exactly when that schedule opens. Uh, JFK and Dallas to Helsinki are a little easier. You don't need to be maybe right on the ball for 361, um, but you need at least, I mean, 11 months now. Uh, the rate is 63,000 Finnair Avios each way. You can, uh, transfer Finnair Avios From any of the other Avios programs, which means you can get them from pretty much any bank that you have. Yeah, that is the important wrinkle here is just how easy Avios are to earn, whether you transfer from Chase or Amex or Capital One into British Airways, and then you're gonna wanna kick them over to Finnair because they charge the lowest rates and also the lowest taxes and fees. It's pretty reasonable. You've flown this. Mm-hmm. You would, you would support this in the number one s- spot on this list. Yeah, absolutely. I- we found it very easy to book. We were able to get our, uh, my in-laws booked as well, so not only did I book myself, but we booked two others on the flight the day after, 'cause they only release, uh, two seats on each daily flight. But great experience and the booking is very easy. Finnair's tech, their website is, is pretty crisp. I'm glad you mentioned the, the two passengers too, because I think that's a common thread throughout this entire list too, is we're not just talking about one seat here because, I mean, could you fly by yourself? Sure. Should you? I mean, depends on how mad you wanna make your spouse if you have one. Uh, but every- everything here we're talking about being able to reliably book at least two business class awards seats. Yeah. Uh, let's stay in the Avios family. Tell me about Iberia business class Iberia business class I think is really solid. I actually think it's underrated. Uh, it's got a r- bad rap of, like, it's a great deal, but it's not the best business class in the world. And is it the best business class in the world? It's certainly not, but it's really solid, and I think the food especially is really quite good. Every time I've flown it, I've had a great experience. I think most importantly, like I said, the rate is phenomenal. If you're flying from the East Coast or Chicago O'Hare, you can book it for as low as 40,500 Avios each way, and really reasonable taxes and fees, like $130 for a one-way from the United States over to Madrid. In order to get that low rate, at least on the mileage front, you need to book during off-peak periods, so you gotta avoid peak summer, you have to avoid the holidays and a couple other stretches in the spring as well as, um, a couple of dates in the fall. But, uh, this is a really solid deal. Yeah. I lo- I love their seat on the A321XLR too. There are only 14 business class seats on that flight, so you get really good service, and I found it really, really comfy as well. Uh, the peak season rates, as you mentioned, are a little higher. They're not only harder to book, but they're a little higher, so that lowest rate for peak season is gonna be about 59,000 Avios each way. Still a great deal if you're gonna be able to book it in June, July. Yeah. In terms of availability, again, this is the one that I booked exactly 361 days in advance. I would say we tend to see other drops of availability throughout the year where, you know, probably three, four times a year our premium team will send out a few months of availability that might be as little as four months in advance. But if you are trying to make a trip to especially Spain or really anywhere in Europe work, and you- you know exactly when you need to go, I do think that you need to look 360-plus days in advance right when that calendar opens. And this is one where you really need to be flexible. You need to look at Boston and JFK and Newark and DC Dulles and Chicago and even Toronto, um, all of 'em. Cast as wide a net as you can, because you're not gonna see availability for two seats on every single one of those routes. Okay, here's one that I think is gonna buck our 361-day, uh, trend here, and that is British Airways business class. Have you ever flown up front with BA? I have not. I've got it on the books. Um, our colleague Jackson flew it earlier this year and said it was definitely solid. Didn't seem like it was his favorite flight ever. Uh, it, it merits a spot on this list. I would actually argue maybe this should've been number one, because there is no airline that has bucked the trend overall of getting stingier with, uh, business class award availability than British Airways. It is about as widespread as it gets right now. It is easier to book not just two, but four, eight, sometimes 10 business class seats on the same award, on the same award reservation than with British Airways from basically all of their US gateways The rub is that most people look at British Airways, booking British Airways, an award ticket using British Airways Avios, and that's pretty gross because it's at least eighty-eight thousand Avios each way and about four hundred dollars in taxes and fees. If you look for that exact same seat using Finnair Avios, for example, it's eighty-eight thousand Avios and fourteen hundred dollars each way. You could also book through either American or Alaska Atmos for reasonable award rates, but as much as eight hundred dollars or more in taxes and fees each way. So it sh- has just scared a lot of people off. But the award availability is there, and so the way that you book this is with Japan Airlines Mileage Bank, which you can transfer from Citi, Bilt, and Capital One, and it's as low as forty-two thousand miles each way, a little bit more from some of the other US gateways, as much as sixty thousand miles. But the reason why you do this is it's just two hundred and fifty or less in taxes and fees from many US and Canadian gateways. Um, you can book for a round trip for even less than two times that one-way price. It's just an amazing opportunity that, as we've seen with Japan Airlines Mileage Bank, some of these opportunities are getting cut off. They've already ended both Emirates and Air France Is that gonna happen with British Airways? We don't know, but you should jump on it while you can. Book something for next year, later this year, as far out as you can, as close in as you need to. There's gonna be an opportunity to do it if you're flexible. Yeah, searching for Oneworld award availability in business class is best done on American's website. That's not where you'll book, but that's where you can do the searching, and you'll see that the availability is really solid from a lot of these gateways flying over to London. So that's a, a really good way to use your points and miles if you can stomach some slightly higher taxes and fees, or book with Japan Airlines. You don't have to worry about the super high taxes and fees either. Um, let's talk about LATAM business class. I think this deserves to be on the list as well. I know our colleagues, uh, John and Katie, have both flown, uh, LATAM's business class suites. Um, have you flown LATAM business class? I have not. Yeah. It's on, it's on the list. I had it booked, and then my wife and I canceled it because something else came up. It has eluded me as well, and that is despite what is really strong availability on many routes, but especially to Lima, Peru. If you wanna fly on their several routes from the US to Lima, we find that quite a bit. Um, the rates, uh, to Lima are gonna be 50,000 Virgin Atlantic miles, 42,000 Japan Airlines miles, and 33,000 Cathay Pacific miles, but you have to call on those last two in order to book them. The flights down to Brazil, Argentina, and Chile are gonna be a little higher. You can book them with Finnair for 76,000 miles, 95,000 Virgin Atlantic miles, 63,000 Cathay miles, 60,000 Japan Airlines miles, or that awesome 85,000 Japan Airlines miles round-trip rate, which is fantastic, too. But ju- LATAM continues to have very solid availability. Yeah, this one definitely merits a high spot on the list. If, if South Amer- anywhere in South America, but especially Peru, and going somewhere like Machu Picchu is on your radar, this is one that you really wanna get on in 2027 because this kind of award availability, as widespread, uh, as it is, probably isn't gonna last very l- very much longer. I would jump on some of these deals, especially, again, booking through Japan Airlines Mileage Bank if you have a way to earn those miles sooner rather than later. Okay, next one, Kyle. EVA Air is never gonna give you the sponsorship that you've been yearning for, and that's because you've been singing their praises so loudly for so long. I- Tell me about EVA ... I am an unabashed fanboy of EVA. I have flown their business class a handful of times. It remains my single favorite flight. Th- every time I've flown it, it's probably still in the top 10, if not the top five. The seats are great. The service and the food is where it really shines. It is the epitome of airlines that don't offer a first class product tend to do much better in business class, and EVA is just I l- I love it so much Okay, so say you want to book with your EVA Air Infinity MileageLands miles, which is actually the name, uh, how would you go about doing that? When should you look? I mean, most importantly, this is how you have to book it. So th- every other time that I've booked this airline, I have used, like, Air Canada or Avianca Lifemiles or some other Star Alliance program that offers cheaper rates. And what has happened within the last two years or so is that EVA has followed really the rest of the industry and said, "You know what? We're only gonna let our members who are our Infinity MileageLand special members book using those Infinity MileageLands miles." So that means you need to transfer points from either Citi or Capital One into an EVA account. The online booking process is a little bit complicated, as Katie touched on in our episode recently about ranking the different airline mileage programs. That's gotten a little bit better recently. It's a little bit of a hassle still, but it's worth it because you can book seats for two passengers on many US gateways throughout much of the calendar because that's the only place that they offer this anymore. So it's just much more widespread availability. You can book for as low as 75,000 miles one way from the West Coast, gateways like Seattle, LA, and San Francisco, or 80,000 miles each way from really the rest of United, U- the United States where EVA operates, and you can do that not just nonstop to Taipei, but also connect onwards throughout a good chunk of Southeast Asia for the same rates. Really reasonable taxes and fees and fees as well. This is, uh, about as much of a slam dunk as we can offer here. Yep, as long as you have the Citi or Capital One points to transfer into EVA, it is a really, really solid option. Let's talk about Delta One. So this is gonna be the most unique on this list probably because they don't release availability like a normal airline does. So first of all, Delta One suites, tell me about that flying experience. Delta One suites are very solid ei- on either the Airbus A350 or the A330-900neo, very modern, great entertainment systems, a lot of privacy, plenty of space. I really like it Everything else that Delta offers, not so great. Um, you know, their, their fleet, their long-haul fleet is just a patchwork of those brand-new planes that are really nice. They're going to be even nicer as they bring on A350-1000s next year with even newer Delta One suites. But everything else on their older A330s and definitely their 767s is really old and worn and really needs to be replaced. You know, I've only flown Delta One suites one time, and it was from Detroit to Minneapolis on an A350 at about 7:00 AM on a Sunday. How was your meal on that flight? Skip plastic cup of, uh, lukewarm coffee. Delicious. Yeah. Um, so in order to book Delta One suites, uh, it is tougher because you are relying on these Delta SkyMiles flash sales, which are a little bit random. There are some trends to them, one of which is, you know, you're gonna find pretty solid flash sales every year, uh, on off-season flights to more popular places like Europe. Um, but we also in the past have seen them just do these big flash sales that just encompass peak summer as well. You know, we've seen all of their routes to Rome open up in June, July, August, I mean, peak season in Italy, and they're just trying to, to move supply and move in- in- inventory on those flights too. Um, but we also see them target new destinations, especially like- This is the big one This is the big one. I mean, Taipei, Hong Kong, Brisbane, all of those within their first year of announcing and starting those routes, we saw big crazy SkyMiles flash sales, including flying Delta One. Um, the rates vary. I mean, y- we found recently 48,000 SkyMiles round trip in Delta One to Bogota, uh, and then, you know, as low as 97,000 SkyMiles each way to Europe or Asia. Um, most of the time it's a little higher than that, just a little over 100,000 SkyMiles each way f- during those SkyMiles flash sales. But, uh, really solid rates, but there is- It's not as reliable to, you just have to wait for those SkyMiles flash sales, right? If, if you're flexible, you can get some amazing deals, and you can rely on these things. But if you're going into it saying that I wanna go to Europe, I wanna fly into London or to Paris on August 23rd and come back on September 7th, good luck. You're gonna see 400,000 SkyMiles or more each way. But if you're flexible, if you're willing to wait for, say, a premium deal to come into your inbox or just searching yourself, especially during off-peak periods, you can increase your chances of finding a pretty, pretty stellar redemption, I would say. I mean, you know, our premium members know, and we've talked at length about how amazing some of these SkyMiles sales have been over the course of 2026, and that things bode really well, I think, for 2027, that this is gonna continue. The weird thing is, is that these SkyMiles flash sales are sometimes kind of a scalpel where, you know, earlier this year, for example, I booked a Delta One suite from Tokyo back to Minneapolis for 79,000 SkyMiles each way because that was in August when most people don't really wanna be in Tokyo because it's really, really hot The flip side is that sometimes they use a shotgun where, you know, we sent a ton of SkyMiles flash sales to Europe during the peak summer, exactly when a lot of people wanna be there, throughout basically the entire continent of Europe where Delta operates for 97,000 SkyMiles each way. So if you're patient and you're willing to wait for a deal or work pretty hard to find one, you can find a solid deal. Okay. Let's go back to Avios and talk quickly about Aer Lingus. Um, I flew Aer Lingus to Europe in May. I thought the experience was awesome. Our service was, uh, really solid. I think the seat, especially those throne seats, if you're on one of the narrow body planes where there's that seat whi- which has all the extra room on both sides instead of sitting next to a, uh, partner, um, I thought that ex- exceptionally comfortable there, too. Uh, to book them- Did, did Megan like it more because she wasn't sitting next to you? Yeah. The, the flight attendant came up to us and saw that we were talking to each other across the aisle, and he was like, "I have two seats if you guys wanna sit together." And we looked at each other, and we're like- "No, it's okay." No, no, we'll see each other later. And he, he looks at us and goes, "Yes, romance in Europe, not on the way to Europe." I was like, "Thanks, buddy." He was great. Uh, to book these seats, it's a little different. So availability for Aer Lingus is typically easier to find a little closer in, like two to five months out, especially on their routes out of Boston and JFK, um, to both Dublin and Shannon. Uh, the rates on these, if you book with I- uh, sorry, not Iberia Avios, Aer Lingus Avios is 50,000 Avios off-peak and 60,000 at peak rates. You can book through Alaska for 45 to 55,000 Alaska Atmos each way, and then American Airlines is the newest way to book, um, maybe the best just 'cause all the flexibility and the ability to tack on connections, uh, for 58,000, uh, American Airlines miles each way and only $6 in taxes and fees, crucially. I, I really like Aer Lingus, especially if you're just trying to get to Dublin. Is it, is it worth doing what I'm gonna do next year to connect through Madrid to get there? Probably not. Maybe not my wisest move, especially when there are so many non-stops from the United States as well as Canada straight into Dublin. The seats themselves are n- not the fanciest that you're gonna find in the sky, especially if you can find one of those throne seats, but I just love the service on Aer Lingus. Irish people are just the best, and they really have some great staff on their flights. Yeah. Okay, I think enough said on that one. We'll go quickly on this one too 'cause we touched on it earlier, but this JFK to Frankfurt, uh, Singapore Airlines business class Fifth Freedom route. Uh, Singapore Airlines business class is so nice. Uh, it is probably too nice for a flight as short as JFK to Frankfurt, but, uh, you can book this one very reliably only with Singapore miles, but the availability is wide open. The rate is 89,000 Singapore KrisFlyer miles each way. You can book it with, uh, Air Canada Aeroplan miles. Uh, the best availability is usually on the way back from Europe back to JFK. Um, but if you have the miles and you just want something super reliable to Europe, I'd look at this one every time Singapore is a great way to get to Europe. This is a s- very solid way to do it that's kind of off the wall, flying Singapore Airlines, not from Singapore or anywhere, but from JFK to Frankfurt. The seats, I will say, are a little bit divisive because, especially on the planes that they use from JFK to Frankfurt, they use a Boeing 777, which instead of having a recline function on those seats, there's like a latch on the back of the seat which folds down to turn it into a bed, which is a little bit wonky and maybe not the most comfortable thing, but we're talking about, you know, maybe an eight-hour flight at the absolute most. You're gonna be fine. Singapore's service is legendary. It, it's a great flight. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, let's talk about Qsuites, because f- I think for a long time we would say 361 days in advance, exactly when the schedule opens, you're probably gonna be able to find Qsuites availability. I think that's gotten harder. Uh, Qatar's tinkered with this a little bit. I mean, this is the epitome of that situation where as more people are trying to book, it is just becoming so scarce. I mean, years ago you could book, you know, two seats here or there, not just through Qatar or British Airways, but also using American or Alaska miles or others. And increasingly, you absolutely need to use Qatar Avios because you can book that 361 days out, and it's not even enough to book 360 days out anymore. You gotta book really, if you want your choice of what you can book, right when that calendar opens, which again, I think is at like 8:00 PM Eastern for the following day in Qatar when it's like 3:00 AM Doha time. It really, you really do need to be that precise if you want to be able to book exactly what you want. Yeah. You're looking at 70,000 Qatar Avios just to get to Doha, and then up to 95,000 Qatar Avios if you wanna connect on to the rest of the world or those furthest away routes, and everything in between is in between in price, too. Uh, you can book with BA Avios, but only 355 days in advance, and by that time, the space is almost always gone. So you really need ... That, that's the difference between five days or six days right there, is, is if it's there or not. Yeah, you, you basically just don't even worry about it, and Qatar added some restrictions on being able to book for more than one passenger. They rolled the worst of those back, so it's relatively easy now to do it. If Qsuites are on your list, go set up a Qatar Avios account right now. Mm-hmm. Do it now so you're all set up. Add your companion when you're ready to. We've got a great guide that we'll link in the show notes. Um, o- the one wrinkle here is that the taxes and fees have gotten a little bit steep. It's more than 200 for a nonstop, more than 300 if you're gonna connect through Doha on in route to somewhere else. That is the price you pay to fly one of the best business class seats in the world. Yeah. Okay, let's go, let's talk about two partners here, uh, Lufthansa and Swiss. So, um When booking these European airlines, you're gonna get pretty solid availability in the off season. Um, with Lufthansa, the seats are released 300 days in advance. It's pretty, I wouldn't say pretty easy. It's reliable to book them for that winter season. Uh, same thing with Swiss. Of course, the winter season in Switzerland is ski season, so that is peak season for your boy, but- I, I need a, like, a ski button. You can have a ski button. We can just fill this table with buttons. Ski button, O'Hare button. Oh, that's the one I really need. Yeah. No, the O'Hare button is I take a mug and I crack it over your head. Um, the important thing to remember for Lufthansa and Swiss is that you cannot book with Avianca Life Miles anymore. Uh, they used to give the lowest rates on those routes. Instead, you can book with, uh, Air Canada Aeroplan Miles when they release them for 60,000 to 75,000 Aeroplan Miles each way, or 88,000 United Miles, or just 80K for United cardholders. Uh, anything to say about Lufthansa and Swiss? Yeah, this is a- another one where it used to be a lot easier than it is, and if you're flexible and, especially if you're looking to get to Europe during the off-peak season, this is a really strong option. If I had to call out one route, I think it would be JFK to Geneva on Swiss, because that one tends to have the best availability of everything. I, I wouldn't say it's completely wide open for 365 days of the year, but if you're just trying to get to Continental Europe, and you're willing to connect elsewhere or hop on a train to get to where you need to go, or you're just trying to get especially to this corner of Europe and then be able to fan out to wherever you need to go, that is probably the single best option, at least between these two airlines. The availability on the others can be quite solid. That one's probably the single best. Yeah, I flew that route in economy to get to Chamonix a few years ago, and that was an awesome way to do it. Very close to Chamonix, Geneva. Uh, finally, I wanna talk about Virgin. Um, you've flown Virgin. Tell us about the seat, first of all. Uh, seats are really solid on their, um, Airbus A350-1000s, as well as especially their A330-900NEOs. Um, I personally prefer the A350s. Um, they're a little bit weird. They're not as great for couples. They don't have closing doors, but there's still a lot of privacy. On the A330, the seats are just a little more narrow, so it's not quite as comfortable in my opinion, but they're both big improvements over their older planes like their Dreamliners, which have very outdated business class seats that you probably wanna avoid if you're handing over this amount of miles in, especially taxes and fees. They have finally announced that they are, uh, trying to get rid of those coffins up in, uh, those Dreamliners that people really hate. I call them the- the tootsies seat 'cause you can see everybody's feet in the aisle when you're sitting there or standing there. Very trendy. But then you can show off your new socks. That's right, exactly. Um, you can book these best with Virgin miles. Uh, 29,000 Virgin miles is the lowest rate you can find on some of those routes from the East Coast, uh, up, I mean, they're dynamically priced, which is why you're gonna see pretty solid availability when booking Virgin seats with Virgin miles. But the catch, those taxes and fees, almost $700 in taxes and fees departing the US, and 735 departing the UK. Uh, I'm no math whiz, but that's over $1,000 round trip in taxes and fees. That's a little steep for most people. It's painful, especially considering less than two years ago, that was under $250 from the US over to London. Really brutal. I think especially brutal because increasingly, the award availability to book, not just at 29 to 35,000 Virgin Atlantic Flying Club points each way, but even under 100,000, has gotten harder to find in the last year or so. I mean, I scanned through the calendar before we jumped in the studio here and couldn't find a single date, even in January and February from most of the East Coast So it's gotten a lot tougher. This one, it will come back if you can, if you're willing to stomach the taxes and fees, if you can find one of those frequent, um, Amex offers to save, you know, say 250 or even $500 when you spend $1,500 or more with Virgin Atlantic. That can offset a lot of this cost, especially if you're booking for two. Um, yeah, it's tough. It, it merits a spot on this list, but there's a reason why it's the absolute dead last here. Yeah. Okay, I, I think it's re- worth recapping the airlines we've just mentioned on this list. So we had Finnair business class, which you're gonna wanna book well out in advance. Same thing with Iberia business class, British Airways business class, which is a little more evergreen, but you gotta be able to book with Japan Airlines or Cafe to save on those taxes and fees. We have LATAM Air- Airlines business class. We have EVA Air, which is maybe the most solid way to book flights to Asia. We have Delta One, but usually only during these flash sales. We have, uh, Aer Lingus, bookable with Avios and their partners that you can find typically a little closer in, like two to five months out. We have JFK to Frankfurt on Singapore business class, that fifth freedom route. We have Qsuite, which are getting harder and harder to book, but at the end of the calendar, not so bad. Lufthansa and Swiss, which are best bookable in the off-season, and then of course, Virgin, if you can stomach the taxes and fees. Anything jump out at you about this list? Any overarching trends here? Two things. One is, again, just how much this list has changed since we talked about this last year and since I've been talking about it less than a month ago. This, this list changes all the time, which brings me to two, which is flexibility is just everything here. To be flexible about which airline you fly, which city you depart from, which city you fly into, and especially the days that you're actually traveling. If you can start with th- the deal, whether it's, you know, using a tool like seats.aero to just find business class award availability, availability from the United States to Europe or a deal from Thrifty Traveler Premium that will get you at least close to where you wanna be, if not exactly to your final destination, and use the dates that are actually available to start to plan your trip, you're gonna have way more wins booking business class than trying to, you know, start with the dates, have those locked in, know exactly which product you wanna fly, transfer your points already before you've booked anything. You're just kinda increasingly setting yourself up for disaster that way. Yeah, definitely. Okay, let's help a listener. Um, Robin sent us an email after listening to our Starter Kit series and wants to plan her first trip transferring points. She said her goal is to take a trip to Spain from Chicago O'Hare next May. She says, quote, "I'm having some difficulty managing and tracking searches for one-way versus round-trip versus multi-city and wanting to treat ourselves to premium econ or business at least the way there and searching multiple partners that go there. How do I narrow down which flights and partners' availability to check?" She says she's worried about booking too early or too late and feels like she's got the points paralysis for sure right now. Kyle, I think Robin is in a very relatable conundrum here, especially to Europe where there are so many options. Um, because it's Spain, she has lots of good options flying from O'Hare. What would you do if you were her just to get started in planning this trip? I would start searching now, um, if you haven't already, using a program like Iberia, trying to search as far out as you can to see what the availability is like. But I would also say, you know, would it be great to fly from O'Hare straight to Madrid? Of course it would be. But, you know, the business class av- award availability, especially on Iberia, is not always the best. You might need to get yourself to JFK or to Newark or to Boston or even DC Dulles in order to make that work. So as much flexibility as you can introduce into this, I think is, is the best way to go about it. And then the other thing is to just not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Book something that you know that you can cancel for either a reasonable fee or without fees, period. Because if something else comes up as you continue searching and going down this rabbit hole, cancel that, book something that's gonna be a little bit better. Maybe something, you know, you book something from JFK, and then you keep searching, and then that Iberia award from Chicago O'Hare to Madrid pops up, then you can book that. And then the final thing is, you know, do what I did for this trip that I'm planning right now, which is we've got an outbound to Madrid, and that's it. And then I know once the calendar opens for when we need to return back to the United States from Ireland, I'll be able to, at the very least, book something in economy to get a placeholder in place to kinda start this whole process over again of trying to improve it as that trip draws closer. Yeah, this is, uh, advice that I'm giving to you, Robin, but it's also advice for myself 'cause I fall into this all the time. You don't have to plan your whole trip in one afternoon. I always fall into this where I book something exciting, and then it's like, "All right, I just wanna topple every domino, get this thing all booked," because I get really excited about my trip. But also, just take your time. Things will pop up as well. You don't have to get it all done. Just get something booked. Book it f- book it flexibly, and then you can just pick away at it until next May and make it the best trip that you can possibly make it. If you want us to answer your questions on the podcast or if you have any feedback, hit us up at podcast@thriftytraveler.com. We might feature your question on next week's show. To close the show, as always, we go on the spot and it's my turn to put Kyle on the spot. Are you ready? Mm-hmm. Okay, you've flown all of what I would consider to be the best business classes in the world, Qsuites, ANA The Room, the new Japan Airlines A350 business class, EVA, and more. So here's my question for you, Kyle. I am making you Travel Czar for two minutes right now. You can take any business class in the world and put it on this list of the easiest business classes to book, but whichever one you choose, you can never fly again. What business class would you make bookable for the people s- but that you could never enjoy again? This is the ultimate sacrifice. Oh. Yeah. So for, for the betterment of the travel society? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Okay. Hmm. This is a really, really good question. And, and it, it should be one of these, like, really premier business class experiences, right? Yeah, I would say. This is something ... Yeah, but you have to sacrifice it for yourself. So we're, we're kinda ... I'm trying to find the line between Kyle the selfish traveler who wants to gate keep his favorite business class, and the benevolent Kyle who's going to gift it to the world. Okay, so I am gonna go with Singapore Airlines because while I wouldn't put it among my top five, I don't think, the wrinkle here is, is that that would open up JFK to Frankfurt, which is currently pretty easy to book with Singapore miles, but I would love for more people to be able to book for 60,000 airplane points. It also opens up Japan, and then it also opens up Singapore. And so it covers probably more of the globe from the United States than anything else on this list. I mean, you know, I would love to say Qatar, but then you're just talking really about getting to Doha and beyond, which you can connect to a lot of different places. But, you know, to get to Japan from the United States flying Qatar, we're talking about 30-plus hours of travel versus, you know, like 10 or 12 using Singapore. So I'm gonna go with Singapore on that one. I like that. That was well thought out for an on the spot. Nicely done. Thank you. And thank you all so much for listening to the Thrifty Traveler podcast. If this episode was way above your head and you're just getting started in points and miles, or you know somebody who needs to get started in points and miles to join you on your next trip, consider listening to our starter kit series. You can find it right here in this podcast feed. Also, rate us five stars on your platform of choice, and like and subscribe to the show on YouTube or send this episode to somebody you know who needs a vacation. If you have feedback for us, send me a note at podcast@thriftytraveler.com. We would love to hear from you there. Kyle, tell us about the team. This episode was produced by your favorite host, who cannot afford the taxes and fees to fly Virgin Atlantic Tootsie Class- ... Gunnar Olsen. It was produced and edited by Sylvia Thomas and edited by Kyle Thomas. Our theme music is by Benjamin Tissot. See you next week. See ya.