It’s the news every points and miles aficionado has been waiting for: After years of pain, award travel is, in fact, getting easier. Alongside an undeniable trend in red-hot cheap airfare, outstanding deals keep popping up to redeem your points - whether you’re on the hunt for a discounted economy deal or a notoriously hard-to-book lie-flat award ticket. So Gunnar and Kyle dig into what’s driving this lovely new trend and, most importantly, the dozen or so deals that have us thinking that award travel has finally turned a corner. We’re calling it (working title) “Hot Flight Summer.” Come for Hot Flight Summer and stay for Gunnar’s hot fireworks take, a revelation about Kyle’s reality TV viewing habits, and why Virgin Atlantic really ticked us off this week.
It’s the news every points and miles aficionado has been waiting for: After years of pain, award travel is, in fact, getting easier. Alongside an undeniable trend in red-hot cheap airfare, outstanding deals keep popping up to redeem your points - whether you’re on the hunt for a discounted economy deal or a notoriously hard-to-book lie-flat award ticket.
So Gunnar and Kyle dig into what’s driving this lovely new trend and, most importantly, the dozen or so deals that have us thinking that award travel has finally turned a corner. We’re calling it (working title) “Hot Flight Summer.”
Come for Hot Flight Summer and stay for Gunnar’s hot fireworks take, a revelation about Kyle’s reality TV viewing habits, and why Virgin Atlantic really ticked us off this week.
00:00 - Introducing … “Hot Flight Summer”
03:16 - Something Hot: Cash airfare continues to drop (think sub-$300 roundtrip flights to Europe!)
08:45 - Something Cold: Virgin doubled taxes and fees on biz class awards
13:50 - A word from our sponsor (us, and our Thrifty Traveler Premium service that’s finding more deals than ever!)
15:43 - The Extra Mile: Hot Flight Summer, or why we think award travel is (finally) getting easier
21:00 - The rise of the elusive “Unicorn Alert” (even if Emirates hates us)
24:30 - Business class award deals to Australia and across the Pacific are back!
29:15 - Gunnar gushes about the Cathay’s The Pier First Class Lounge
34:45 - Booking partner awards – including the rare Delta One redemptions
36:00 - And don’t forget about economy flights, too!
40:15 - The exceptions: Star Alliance ,Iberia’s biz class devaluation, and Amex transfers to Emirates
43:15 - Listener Questions: How to fly to Australia/New Zealand using points and miles, in biz class or economy
48:45 - On the Spot: A listener checks in from Kyle’s favorite hotel in the world while Kyle taps into his Love Island fandom to couple up with – and dump from the island – two recent deals
Produced by Gunnar Olson & Jackson Newman
Edited by David Strutt
Show music: “All That” by Benjamin Tissot
Yo.
I am Gunnar Olson here with your annoying neighbor who's still setting off fireworks more than a week after the fourth of July holiday in your neighborhood.
It's Kyle Botter.
Hang on.
That is slander.
That is blasphemy.
I would never, especially with a dog in the house.
I would I wouldn't even do this in my own home, in my own backyard on July 4.
Honestly, I just I just set this up because I'm I'm working on a take.
I think fireworks are bad.
I hate them.
I don't I don't think that the five seconds of boom and beauty is enough to make up for the fact that we're tormenting dogs and veterans and just the whole world.
Nobody needs to hear this.
It's it's July whatever.
It's not July 4.
Keep your fireworks out of here.
My dog hates it so much, and it just creates so much chaos in my house.
You're gonna get some typo filled emails from men with nine fingers as a result
of this take, but, I'm on your side, Gunner.
Yeah.
Ban fireworks.
I'm done with it.
Alright, Kyle.
Today on the show, we're gonna be talking about something more fun than fireworks.
It's this kinda unprecedented run of points and miles award availability.
Basically, we've been talking about it for a few weeks now.
Things have been just It's it's like
all we talk about.
Yeah.
It's things have been exceptionally, exceptionally good.
And when it comes to booking flights with points and miles in any cabin to almost every destination that we can think of that we'd wanna go to lately.
So we're gonna dig into this in our main topic today and talk about what's happening, but I'm done calling it unprecedented availability or this incredible run we're on.
We need a name for this, and so I need it we're gonna do a quick brainstorm at the top of the show.
What are we calling this?
Can I we've called it cheap flights bonanza, but I don't think that does the trick?
Do you like cheap flights bonanza?
I think we can do better.
Okay.
We've before, when things like this happen, we called it booking season.
Season implies, a concrete beginning and end.
So I don't think that doesn't either because we don't know if or when this will end.
Okay.
What about, flight deal summer?
I think we're getting warmer, in the summer element there for sure.
It kinda started in the spring, but it just it's kinda coalesced around these summer months, really.
So what about hot flight summer?
Is that too strained compared to flight deal summer?
I really like it.
You like hot flight summer?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think that's the winner so far.
Unless if any of our listeners can come up with something better, which is a low bar for us.
Yeah.
We'll, let's do a little contest with the listeners.
Podcast at thriftytraveler.com.
Send us your submission for, what you think we should be calling this, unprecedented run of award availability.
See, it just doesn't work like that.
I think hot flight summer is gonna be the leader in the clubhouse.
That's what we'll call it for, at least for today.
So does that sound good?
Hot flight summer it is.
Alright.
Hot flight summer.
Today on the show, we're gonna talk all about hot flight summer.
We're also gonna talk about some of the cash flight deals we've seen, some bad news from Virgin, and, we're gonna help some listeners get to Australia and New Zealand.
All that and more.
Welcome back to the Thrifty Traveler podcast.
Okay.
Let's jump into something hot and something cold where we look into the good and the bad news out there for travelers from the last week, and we'll start as always with something hot.
We're gonna talk about hot flight summer, which is the, you know, award availability points and miles, but, we gotta get a little love to the cash deals because for most travelers, a cheap cash ticket is still the main goal.
And then just the last week, while I was off, finishing off my baby leave, we sent sub $800 flights to Japan, sub $700 flights to India, sub $300 nonstop flights to Ireland, sub $500 flights to Rome on the mainline carriers, and then some more flights in the 2 hundreds round trip to Rome if you wanted to fly North Atlantic.
So I'll be honest.
When this started a few months ago, I thought, all the cheapest flights would be drying up by now.
It's we're into July.
Usually, that's when we start to see things kinda peter off.
What has happened?
What did I miss?
Why are the deals still so good?
I think you're probably asking the same question, not just as travelers out there, but airlines and CEOs.
I don't I don't think any of us expected this to stretch on as long as it has.
And to still see sub $300 flights to Dublin or Rome, not just for, you know, this fall or next winter, but even yet this summer at prices, not just a half, but in many cases, a quarter of what the airlines typically sell this at.
You know, we've been talking around this topic repeatedly for the last three months and change.
Right?
And every time we've had the caveat that these deals are amazing, but we don't know how long they're gonna last because it's going to depend upon travel demand.
And I think what we have to assume is that travel demand continues to drop.
It's not dropping everywhere.
Clearly, some people wanna go to some different places.
And if you just look at the numbers of travelers who are moving through TSA checkpoints every single day, especially around the fourth holiday, There are still millions of Americans traveling every single day.
But something is changing.
Right?
Either demand is dropping or, you know, probably more likely, the supply of flights is just too high and that after, you know, four or five years of nonstop growth and airlines doubling and then tripling down on Europe in particular, they've hit an oversaturation point where there are just too many seats to fill and not enough millions of travelers to fill them at the high prices that airlines wanna charge.
Maybe it is.
It's just the competition is so fierce, and there are so many airlines offering flights to like, we said for the Ireland example, so many airlines are flying to Dublin now or allowing you to connect through their partners to Dublin for incredibly cheap prices.
And but I just think about these, you know, 200 something dollar round trip fares to Ireland from The US Mainland.
And I'm just thinking, you know, again, as we've established on the show, Kyle, I've I've never run an airline, but I feel like if I did run an airline, that's not a good proposition for you.
At that point, like, maybe just take this flights off the schedule.
I don't want to be travelers to love you, though.
Yeah.
Sell a $281 round trip ticket from Minneapolis to Dublin in peak summer.
You're gonna get some fans.
They're not gonna be worth a whole lot of money.
Yeah.
No.
I you know, it this is this is tough.
This is tough to try to dissect because it's gone on so much longer than we anticipated.
But, you know, we probably do need to stress again as we have every time we talk about this topic.
Airfare is not a monolith just because we're talking about the flight deals being, you know, in some cases cheaper than ever, cheaper than we've seen them, in five, six, seven, ten years.
Doesn't mean that you're gonna find a cheap flight everywhere you look.
And, also, even on Minneapolis to Dublin, you know, I gave that example of $281 round trip.
That's flying Aer Lingus.
There's another airline that flies nonstop from Minneapolis to Dublin.
It's Delta.
And Delta has not come anywhere close, at least within the last few months, at offering that kind of a price.
So that again tells you that airfare is not a monolith, and this might be a situation where some airlines are hurting much more than others.
Some airlines are struggling to fill seats.
Some airlines are struggling to fill seats at the prices that they would like to charge, and therefore have to lower them while others like Delta, like United, which I would say, you know, at least among the major mainline carriers that fly between The United States and Europe in particular, stand out as folding into these deals less frequently than some of the others.
You know, we're still seeing, you know, great discounts on round trip flights to Europe from most of the major US as well as international carriers like Lufthansa or British Airways or Iberia or whatever.
But it's not on every single deal.
You know?
Some of these airlines are constantly coming up, others aren't because some of them might just need that business more than others.
Yeah.
No.
That's definitely a good point.
I don't want you all to go search for, your next flight to Dublin and see a flight in the 9 hundreds and then nasty gram me on podcast at thriftytraveler.com when you don't see it.
But the, you know, the deals are pretty amazing right now.
And, if you are looking to do something especially at the end of this summer or early this fall, go take a look.
It might be way cheaper than you think.
It might be cheaper to get to Dublin than to Kansas City this summer, if you're looking to book some sort of a trip.
So but, it can't all be rosy out there in the world of travel, Kyle.
And that's why we have a topic called something cold, and we never have trouble filling the something cold category.
It's the easiest thing for us to talk about because I think we're both inherently pretty angry and negative.
Yeah.
That's right.
So in this awesome run of easy to book award travel, hot flight summer, as we're calling it, there had to be some bad news, and that's, what Virgin Atlantic has done.
Something pretty costly and pretty annoying to, some of our favorite redemptions.
What did they do?
Well,
Virgin Atlantic did us all dirty.
You know, less than a year after they revamped their entire flying club rewards program and lowered not just, you know, the points rates that they charge, whether you're flying economy or premium economy or business class, but also not just have, but quartered the taxes and fees that they add on to those award tickets flying from The United States to London.
They increased them pretty drastically by more than double in most cases.
So, you know, what two weeks ago, you could book a one way flight from JFK or Boston or DC or Atlanta, to London for 20 as low as 29,000 points in business class and about 250, sometimes $260 in taxes and fees.
Now after this change, still that same as low as 29,000 point rate, but $586 in taxes and fees on a business class ticket.
So it more than doubled.
It also more than doubled in premium economy and increased by $40.50 or so dollars, for a one way redemption in economy.
It's just it's really tough to swallow.
This one really hurts.
Yeah.
So is, I actually don't know this off the top of my head.
Is it the same on the return from London, or are the fee fees even higher on the return?
The fees are even higher on the return because you get hit with some nasty government fees from Heathrow in particular that always make those one way tickets or round trips, flying in and out of Heathrow even more painful.
We haven't seen those yet change, on the return flights.
I mean, it may only be a matter of time before those increase too, but, you know, you put it all together and you're once again talking about, you know, flying round trip in business class from The States to London and back, you know, more than 50,000 points at minimum and then, like, twelve, thirteen, fourteen hundred dollars in taxes and fees.
You know, it's it's not as bad as it used to be in the before times.
You know, before Virgin revamped its flying club program, it was more like a thousand dollars each way, you know, whether you're flying from The US to London or vice versa.
So it's not quite as bad as it used to be, but for all of the positive press and praise that Virgin Atlantic has gotten including from us, they've negated a good chunk of that by, you know, drastically and without a word of warning, increasing these fees by more than double to the point where, you know, it's just it's really hard to stomach the thought of paying almost $600 per passenger in order to fly one way.
That's just at the point where it's unreasonable to me personally.
Yeah.
For me, that's that's a wrap on this redemption.
You know?
Like, it's just completely out of reach now.
I should've done it, when everybody else on our team did in the
last When all eight of us booked it at the same time when this first happened on October 30?
Yeah.
I just, you know, well, so naive of me to think that maybe this could last, like, six or seven months, but no.
It's gone.
That's too bad.
That's I mean, that's just way too much money to spend on a flight for me.
And, you know, I'll find other ways.
Lots of airlines that are flying to London, and you can pay $5.60 in taxes and fees.
$5.60.
Very, very important clarification.
$5.60 instead of $560, which is, you know, at this point, closer to the norm, unfortunately, but there are better, cheaper ways to do this.
And this is the thing is no matter what airline you're flying or whose airline miles you're using, you're always going to pay some amount of cash.
Starts as low as $5.60 for a one way, and it goes, you know, in some cases, close to, if not north of a thousand dollars.
The trick is finding the ways to do this where you can reduce that cash cost.
And in many cases, flying over anywhere in Europe, you know, paying a 100, 200, even $300 is kind of the norm.
It's it's not impossible, but it's relatively rare, especially if you're not booking with American, United, or Delta Miles.
It's relatively rare to not pay some kind of substantial cash surcharge on these award tickets.
But, you know, $600, you're you're well past my personal breaking point on that one.
Yep.
Still time to fix it, Virgin.
If you wanted to, we could put you in the something hot category.
We'd do it next week if you, reverse course and go back to the way that it was for the last few months.
But we are gonna talk all about our, hot flight summer a little later in the show, but first, we're gonna take a quick break.
We're talking all about flight deals on today's show.
And if you want flight deals, you need Thrifty Traveler Premium.
247365, our team is sending out the cheapest flights and the hardest to book business class deals bookable with points.
Gunnar, why don't you pick out a couple of favorites from the last few weeks?
Yeah.
I've got one, just from the last few days, actually.
Amsterdam and Paris in either KLM or Air France business class from 50 k points each way.
This one, the availability is what makes this one great.
It's not just these awesome lie flat seats, but it's peak summer and then also a bunch of holiday stuff.
So we get some early, kinda Christmas markets and then, even over the holidays and over New Year's in some cases, which is just awesome availability on those routes.
This other deal that caught my eye, nonstop to Costa Rica from 27,000 points round trip.
This is flying Delta.
You can book these with your SkyMiles, with Virgin Points, or with flying blue on all of the nonstop routes from Atlanta, LA, and Minneapolis down to Costa Rica.
I know a lot of people are gonna book that one.
And then finally, Cathay Pacific business class, near and dear to my heart.
One of my favorite flights ever.
But that one is just wide open availability from their West Coast gateways and from Toronto as well, down to Hong Kong and way beyond.
You could fly, yeah, even further using your Asia miles there.
So some great availability picked up on by our Thrifty Traveler premium flight deal analyst this week.
If you want flight deals like that and more, sign up today at thriftytraveler.com/premium.
As a special treat, podcast listeners can use the promo code t pod for $20 off your first year of deals.
That's thriftytraveler.com/premium.
Enter the promo code t pod, five letters, all one word for $20 off your first year.
Alright.
Back to the show.
Alright.
It is time for the extra mile where we go deeper on a topic in points and miles and travel generally.
And this week, it's gonna be hot flight summer.
And we has to have to talk about these last few months because for travelers out there, especially the ones getting our thrifty traveler premium emails, you noticed a big trend, which is that award travel, whether it's in economy, in business, or way up in first class is easier to book than it has been in years, including some of the rarest availability that some of us, frankly, myself included, had written off, things that we never thought that we'd see again after years of just no availability popping up at all.
So, Kyle, let's just let's just set the table here.
You know, We'll we'll talk a little bit about the exact deals that we're talking about and that, the availability, that we wanna discuss here.
But, you know, what is what's going on with, the travel demand landscape from the past, I guess, five years up until now?
Well, I mean, this is the undercurrent of certainly hot flight summer, which I think we're probably now past the 10 mentioned mark in this, less than twenty minute podcast thus far.
But, you know, really in travel over the last five plus years since the depths of the pandemic, which is that after things ground to a halt, demand has really just grown fast and steadily, to the point where, you know, it shattered every travel record that we've had headed into, 2025.
And then something changed at some point earlier this year leading to the flood of, you know, cheap flights to Europe, cheap domestic flights under a $100 round trip, and this new trend of just finding more award of availability, flights that you can actually book with your points so that you don't search for, you know, Minneapolis to Paris looking for a business class flight.
And nine times out of 10, it either comes up empty or an airline is trying to charge you 275,000 miles each way or more.
Things are getting easier, because for most of the last five years, as travel demand has grown back, that supply and demand balance that is just so critical in driving deals, demand has been outpacing supply without question.
And an airline, if it has a choice, if you talk to Ed Bastian or Scott Kirby or Bob Jordan or whoever about would they rather sell a ticket for $500 in economy or $2,000, 3,000, $5,000 in business class, or would they rather let somebody redeem that using their miles?
Their answer is always going to be give me the money now, please.
So not only has it gotten harder to actually find flights that you can book, whether especially in business class, but even in economy too.
But at the same time, I mean, across the board, think about the number of devaluations that we've seen from airlines from front to back, of airlines raising award rates or eliminating sweet spots so that the heyday of booking a Delta One business class flight, using Virgin Atlantic points for just 50,000 points and $5.60, that's gone.
I mean, that is part that really was the trend for most of the last five years as a war travel is getting more expensive, and it's getting harder to find these seats.
And for the first time in, I mean, at least five years, it does feel like things are getting easier that this story has flipped.
And that while it's certainly not a cinch, especially, again, if you wanna fly first or business class, it is getting easier.
There are more positive stories over the last few months than there have been in years.
And, you know, in any time since I've been doing this since 2018.
Yeah.
It's, you know, we've kinda stumbled into what is, you know, I had loathe to call it a golden era, but we're you know, if you are flushed with points right now and you have a little bit of time to look for it or you outsource it to someone like us or other services out there, it's really easy to find great ways to use these points, especially if you give yourself a little bit of time.
But, so I wanna talk
We'll we'll we'll call it the silver era of points and miles.
It's not quite the golden age, but we're it's just it's refreshing that after so much pain of seeing sweet spot after sweet spot get eliminated.
And once evergreen award redemptions that were so easy to pull off get, you know, next to impossible.
It's it's finally getting easier.
Yeah.
I've, working with the Thrifty Traveler premium team every day, our leader, John Shellbitter, is pretty unflappable, I would say, and I saw him on the verge of stress, which is something that I've never seen in John before the other day.
He was he was pacing around the office because we had so many deals we were trying to put together and so much availability all at once.
He was I think he was getting stressed out about it, and I've never seen him stressed about anything.
No.
No.
He was a first.
It's a good problem.
Everybody check-in on John.
Alright?
He's doing great.
He's getting you the deals that you need to see, but, things are things are stressful out there for him.
So let's let's kinda identify where some of these trends are, most noticeable.
And I guess the first one isn't as much a trend as it is just a name that we use for our rarest of the rare, flight deal alerts, and that's unicorn alerts.
Or what kind of unicorns out there have we seen that, maybe indicative of this greater trend?
Yeah.
And, I mean, this is one where I don't wanna, like, try and promise people you're gonna be able to book this because it comes and goes really fast.
But to your point, these are the kinds of deals that really say something about the state of travel and the fact that, yes, things are getting easier.
Again, it doesn't mean that these are going to be easy to book.
They are still not.
But these are deals that we have not seen, not just in five years, but in some cases, really ever.
So just a couple of weeks ago, we found, a workspace for two passengers flying Japan Airlines first class, from The States to Tokyo and back from a handful of cities.
And it was bookable more than twenty one days, before departure, which that had been the standard pre pandemic is Japan Airlines first class really, really tough to book, unless if you waited until those final three weeks, in which case you could find something.
And in this case, it was kinda throughout the calendar, throughout 2025 and even into 2026.
Same goes for Emirates first class, which, you know, after we found this deal, Emirates then shut the door and said, you know, you can't you can't book these first class awards using our points anymore unless if you have status with us.
But just before then, we found really, really widespread, award space for two passengers, which, you know, in the past, for years, booking more than one passenger was pretty much impossible to the point where when people would ask us, how do I do this?
How do you know, how can my spouse and I fly Emirates first class?
We would tell them, well, decide which one of you really, really wants it and book them in first class, and then book the other person a business class ticket and then try to upgrade later.
And then the last one, Etihad first class.
Booking that had been pretty much impossible unless if you used, Etihad guest miles, which as we talked about on a previous episode, is just atrocious because not only do they charge a ton of miles, but they also charge horrendous cancellation fees if your plans change.
And so what was most impressive about this one was not just that you could book for two passengers, flying Etihad Apartments, but also that it was bookable through American Advantage for a 115,000 miles each way, which is a lot.
I grant you that.
But at the same time, this was the first time we had seen that from North America to Abu Dhabi and back in at least three years, if not more.
Yeah.
I think the key to all this is the two passengers.
You know, it's a little easier to stumble upon the single passenger availability.
It's still it's still rare.
It's still hard to find, but, single passenger availability on all of these is something that you can do.
We're catering to, you know, our audience, our, our subscribers are all people who are traveling for fun.
They're people traveling not for business.
They're doing it with their family.
They're doing it with their friends.
They wanna go someplace with somebody, which is obviously the best way to travel.
So we're always searching for two passenger awards on all this, and that's why these were so, so especially rare.
But, if first class international flights are something that's on your bucket list, getting has been very, very good.
As it has also been, if you wanna fly, lie flat across the Pacific.
That's another one of the kinda trends that we're seeing lately is that Australia, New Zealand, and Asia flights, in business class or in first class have been more available than ever, I think, over the last, I would say three months after what was essentially just a wall of close to three years where we saw almost nothing.
We get it all the time, and we're gonna talk to some listeners later on about getting to Australia and New Zealand.
Those extremely long flights in business class cabin was, something I would probably just have told people to shy away from or try and connect through Asia if you're lucky.
But, you know, tell me a little bit about some of the deals we're seeing there because, this is definitely a trend heading across The Pacific flying west.
Yeah.
I mean, traditionally, flying, in a lie flat seat over to Australia or New Zealand is one of the hardest things to do, period, using points.
It really didn't matter how many points you had.
All of the airlines, especially over the last five years, as demand was so high up, paying customers happy to pay, you know, $1,500 for an economy seat or $15,000 for a business class seat.
They just didn't really have much of a reason to offer up deals to passengers trying to redeem their points.
And, you know, I would say over the last maybe six months or so, we've seen Qantas in particular, Australia's flag carrier, get much more generous with allowing, passengers to book using Qantas miles.
You have to use Qantas' own program, and Qantas does charge a considerable amount of miles.
You know, it's north of a 100,000 miles each way.
But, again, you know, coming on the heels of not seeing that availability whatsoever, The fact that Qantas is suddenly allowing more and more travelers to the point where we send this out, you know, now, what, once every three or four weeks, a Qantas deal from one or two different US hubs to Sydney, to Melbourne, to Brisbane, and in some cases, even to Auckland.
The fact that we're finding those deals at all is, again, evidence of the fact that this doesn't mean it's easy.
Again, I need to stress that.
But it is, however, easier.
And when that includes Australia and New Zealand, that means that something has changed.
Yeah.
For sure.
It's a clear trend so far.
We've also seen some first class on some of those routes as well, which, again, comes at a much higher, price in terms of points and miles.
I think it's north of $1.60.
Yeah.
$1.60 ish.
$1.60 ish each way,
which is you know, that's a lot.
But if you have a lot of points and miles, that's still an awesome redemption that those first class seats look incredible as do Cathay Pacific's first class seats, which is another, example in this trend of we've seen Cathay Pacific business class, you know, that availability comes and goes, not reliably, but, we've seen a few times a year, even during this kind of wall of transpacific flying.
But the first class availability from JFK and LAX, is something that we have rarely seen before.
Tell me a little bit more about that deal.
Yeah.
I mean, Cathay Pacific first class, Qantas first class.
I mean, that's kind of above the level of unicorn.
That's kind of a white whale for a lot of people who have a ton of points and miles and really wanna fly some of the most special cabins in the world.
And those two in particular have been among the hardest to book, period.
Finding even one seat had been a challenge for definitely the last five years, but, you know, going back even further, that was pretty hard to do.
And so, you know, we've, yeah, we've also seen, Cathay Pacific first class bookable.
Again, kind of the same trend.
You have to book through Cathay Pacific's own program, but those points are transferable from most of the major credit card programs, including, American Express, Capital One, and a few others.
So it is doable.
Again, the cost is steep, but we also, you know, uncovered this pretty special wrinkle where you could, you know, fly nonstop from, JFK to Hong Kong and Cathay Pacific first class for, like, a 150,000 miles, a 160,000 miles each way.
But if you tack on a connection in business class, whether you, you know, just make a short hop, up to, Bangkok or somewhere in Vietnam or connect all the way down into Australia, you could drop that cost pretty significantly.
In some cases, it's as low as a 120,000 miles total.
So by adding on an extra flight, you could actually reduce the amount of points that you needed to transfer in order to book these deals.
So that one was truly special.
That deal was so good for so many reasons, not the least of which is that you get access to that Cathay Pacific first class lounge in Hong Kong, the pier.
That was my favorite, six hours in an airport ever.
I've never felt so fancy.
That was so much fun.
I highly recommend if you can find your way in there, whether you have one world Emerald status, which is how I hacked my way in there, or you book this deal, flying Cathay Pacific first class, go in there.
Oh my gosh.
It was so much fun.
Getting a foot massage and having them, bring the specialty beer that they brew for you.
The Betsy, which is over Kyle's right shoulder.
That was really, really fun.
I had an excellent time in that lounge.
Just some more transpacific stuff.
We've seen Japan Airlines.
We've seen Korean Airlines.
We've seen China Airlines.
All Many of which largely disappeared.
A handful of exceptions there.
But either they disappeared entirely or things have gotten easier to find and book, than we've seen in several years.
Yeah.
And, like, in the case of the Japan Airlines stuff, we'd still found and sent deals for Japan Airlines availability that would inevitably get gobbled up or go away within two hours, three hours of us sending it sometimes, but it's all been a little different.
The one the one last deal I wanna point out in this kind of Transpacific trend is Starlux, bookable via Alaska miles, which is definitely the best way to book it.
Starlux is an airline I think we're all very curious about.
None of us have actually been able to get on board yet.
But this airline looks extremely fancy, and, like, a lot of fun to fly.
But this Alaska deal, is really, really exceptional and a great way to fly over to Taipei and beyond in Asia too.
Yeah.
And, you know, that is one where right when, Starlux, business class and economy first became bookable with Alaska miles a couple of years ago now.
There were there were deals here and there.
There was one in particular right when those redemptions came online.
And then after that, it was pretty slim pickings.
And it was that way for at least three years until, you know, I would say within the last two or three months.
You know, we've now seen three widespread award availability, openings, booking for 75,000 Alaska miles each way, from The US to Taipei or vice versa.
Widespread, you know, you have basically your pick of the litter for days across several months for at least two passengers and in some cases more.
I feel like a broken record, but I just need to stress.
These are the kinds of things we had not seen for many years, in some cases, dating back pre pandemic.
So things are getting easier.
Does it mean it's easy?
No.
But it for the first time, it feels like there's a little bit more hope for, you know, the, fellow obsessed sickos like us.
Yeah.
One of the places where we definitely needed a little hope, was with part booking partner awards, which is something that we've always harped on here at Thrifty Traveler and all points and miles people know it's kind of the sneaky backdoor into getting really good value flying, airlines that are partners with each other, whether it's through alliances or through direct partnerships.
We mentioned one, which was booking Etihad first class, using your American miles, which is just a way, way better way to book it than using Etihad's, really funky, nasty program, Etihad Guest.
So we're seeing a little bit of a resurgence in these.
What are we seeing out there?
Again, there's there's just a little bit more hope.
I'll put it this way.
Around January or February, I had a story on our calendar that I was planning to write kind of posing the question, are the days of partner award redemptions dying?
Are airlines going to continue to eliminate these workarounds to book their flights for fewer miles and, therefore, really kinda nuke the value of the points and miles that you have.
You know, utilizing these partner award bookings to book a flight for fewer miles than that airline itself would charge you.
I mean, that's the bread of butt bread and butter of everything that we talk about in terms of maximizing the value of your miles.
And had that trend continued, it would be pretty troubling.
But I had that story on the calendar in January or February of this year and then just kept punting it because they're these kinds of sources of hope kept popping up to the point where, you know, we looked at that story a couple weeks ago that was still on the calendar now for late June and July.
It's like, is this really true anymore?
And the answer is no.
You know?
Could that still happen?
Yes.
Of course.
Things could turn around in this positive trend that we're talking about could turn negative, and, you know, we could see fresh signs that airlines were once again really limiting partner award redemptions.
But for now, it does feel like things are, again, getting a little bit better.
So that Etihad example of being able to actually book for 70,000 American advantage miles each way for the first time that we've seen widespread availability at those rates through American in many years.
And the same goes, especially for booking at DeHaan first class.
The other one that comes to mind is, you know, just a couple of weeks ago as we're talking, we saw for the first time in, oh, I at least four years, maybe more, really, really widespread Delta One award availability bookable through partner airlines like Virgin Atlantic, which now charges a ton of taxes and fees more than a thousand dollars each way, so that's not worth it.
But it was also bookable through Air France KLM flying blue.
The award rates that you needed to pay would vary.
I mean, it went from as low as about 57,000 miles each way to as high as almost 90, even a 100,000 miles each way.
But that is a fraction of what Delta itself charges when, you know, when you can book a flight, you know, from Boston to Lisbon for, like, 55,000 miles in a Delta one business class seat instead of 275,000 Delta Sky miles.
We hadn't seen that kind of widespread award availability for two passengers bookable through many months, including yet this summer.
We hadn't seen that in a long, long time.
Yeah.
Don't bury partner awards yet.
They're they're still out there, and, maybe Kyle will write that story someday, but I really hope you never do, Kyle.
Please, airlines, save me from writing that story.
There's a reason I didn't write it, and I'm glad I didn't have to, and I hope I never have to.
Not writing a story is sometimes the best story we could possibly do here at Thrifty Traveler.
Alright.
I wanna just, head back a few rows.
Let's let's go back into the economy cabin because it gets a lot less love in points and miles, and that's because it's much easier to book typically.
But even so it's gotten easier since, you know, the last few months since hot flight summer.
You know, whether it's a SkyMiles flash sale where just the prices keep getting lower or it's, you know, with one of these more concrete award programs where just there's more availability on more days, on more flights.
It's not just one flight of the day.
Maybe it's two or three.
Tell me a little bit about what we're seeing in terms of economy awards.
Yeah.
I mean, the rub with economy has always been that.
It's generally speaking easier.
It's it's less flashy.
So there's a reason why many sites who do what we do don't talk about economy that much because it you know, you can't tell, like, oh, you can book this $5,000 business class seat for 50,000 points.
Economy doesn't have that same kind of dollar value attached to it, but there still is a ton of value in booking these flights.
It is, generally speaking, easier, but summer and holidays have always been an exception.
So either you wind up paying a ton of points in order to travel over the summer or over the holidays, or the availability is just not there at all.
And so what we've seen is, you know and I think Delta SkyMiles is probably the number one driver here.
The volume of Delta one thereof, Delta SkyMiles deals to places like Europe for under 30,000 SkyMiles round trip, including late summer, to destinations like Rome and Paris and Lisbon.
You go down the list.
I mean, the widespread summer SkyMiles availability is something, like, broken record.
I totally get it.
You just have to get over it, guys.
Something we haven't seen in years.
Yeah.
It's it's been really good.
If you if you have these you know, people stockpile Delta Sky mouse.
We talked all about that in a very recent episode, but, the ways to use them are getting, more varied and getting better in a lot of cases too.
And I, you know, keep thinking about that Taipei deal from was probably almost two months ago for 30,000 sky miles round trip, and you could book it each way as well for 15,000.
25,000 sky miles round trip.
Bookable for 12,500 sky miles each way.
It's just absurd.
Yeah.
Totally absurd.
I mean, the that's hot flight summer.
It's it's unprecedented, which is a word I do not wanna say so I don't get hit with a supercut at it on our Instagram.
It's
too late.
I'm already thinking about it.
Some of the other places we've seen this, American Airlines also has, you know, slightly dynamic awards when it comes to these things.
Their Europe flights, have been pretty consistently cheap as well.
Their Caribbean flights, their Caribbean network is probably the best of the main three carriers.
They fly at almost every single dot on in, the Gulf Of Mexico there.
And so they fly some really great options, and they can you can book them for as little as, like, 10,000 American miles round trip.
And the availability was really good and really deep even for next winter, when we sent that deal just a few weeks ago.
So another great option there.
Yeah.
You know, and we talk a lot about Delta SkyMance flash sales because they truly are the best ways to redeem flash sales.
I mean, what American has going for it is that there are a lot of other great ways that you won't find with Delta in order to redeem advantage miles.
But we maybe don't give Americans flash sales where they just kinda randomly cut routes, you know, to as few as 30,000 advantage miles each way, which, by the way, gets you a main cabin ticket, which you don't get these days, redeeming with, Delta SkyMiles at the lowest rate.
They're not quite as frequent, nor as widespread as what we see with, with Delta, but those American sales have definitely heated up, within the last couple of months as well.
Another great example there.
Let's look at the other side of this trend.
Who and what out there is not taking advantage of hot flight summer?
And I think I have one nominee, and it's a big nominee, and that's, where's Star Alliance at?
Where's United and all of its partners in this award flight bonanza?
I mean, we've seen a little bit.
We had an Austrian business class deal the other day where we found some really good availability flying Austrian.
Probably not, the most exciting, Star Alliance partner that people wanna see out there, but Star Alliance, where you at?
Star Alliance, he gotta come on the podcast.
The entire global network, The alliance needs to get in here.
No.
I mean, just like airfare is not a monolith, neither are award deals, and there are exceptions to this broader trend of award travel getting easier.
And, definitely, you know, Star Alliance doesn't feel quite as easy to book as maybe even it was last summer.
I don't know.
And, you know, that may again tell you that some airlines are doing better than others with kinda coping with these changes in travel demand, and maybe Star Alliance isn't hurting to the same extent as other carriers to the point where it doesn't need to be more generous with award space to be able to book, you know, United Polaris seed from the East Coast to London for 60,000, Air Canada Aeroplan points.
I don't know.
That's a that's a question for them.
There are other exceptions, though.
There are exceptions to the rule, but I do think the rule stands that a war travel, while not easy, is getting easier.
You know, another exception that comes to mind, we talked about in something called Virgin Atlantic raising fees by more than doubling a business class redemption and also raising fees on when you're redeeming flying club points to book a premium economy or economy seat from The United States to London.
That really hurts.
Just within the last few weeks, Iberia raised its award rates to fly, you know, what had been one of, if not the cheapest business class redemption to be able to fly from the East Coast as well as Chicago for 34,000 Avios each way.
All of a sudden, that's closer to 50,000 Avios each way.
That one's pretty tough.
Like we touched on before, Emirates has pretty drastically restricted, you know, the ability to use Emirates Skywards miles, which are transferable from all of the major credit card programs.
Now you need status in order to do that.
And at the same time, Emirates is nuking how you transfer points from both Citi and American Express so that those are no longer one to one transfers, which adds another layer of complication.
Yet in the next breath, we've also sent out within the last few weeks, you know, and some Emirates deals bookable through Qantas.
So you might not be able to book those flights using Emirates' own miles, but you can you can more easily book a partner award redemption than we've seen in a couple of years.
Yeah.
It's, there obviously have to be some exceptions to hot flight summer.
Did you mention Iberia?
Iberia is another one.
Iberia is, yep, prime example.
Yep.
They raised their rates, flying across the Atlantic.
So, you know, it's not all a perfect picture of hot flight summer, but Iberia, Emirates, Virgin, like, there's still time.
It's only July.
Get on.
We're it's hot flight summer.
Everyone's doing it.
You're really trying to make hot flight summer happen.
It's already happening, Kyle.
Should we help some listeners?
Let's help some listeners.
Okay.
We had, two well, I guess, two different emails of listeners who had similar questions and requests, so we're gonna hear from them.
Ryan Olsen from Minnesota, not related to me.
Good caveat.
Everyone up here in the North is some version of an Olsen.
The Olsen section at my college graduation was, like, fifteen minutes long.
It was honestly embarrassing by the time they got to me.
Ryan writes to us, short term listener, but long time Thrifty Traveler subscriber.
I'm gonna skip over his very long, very impressive list of TT Premium deals that he's booked over the past few years.
I wish I could read it all into the record, Ryan, but we do not have time.
He said, me and my wife have a new goal for ourselves.
We wanna make a stop at all six continents before we have kids.
Oceania is our next goal next summer, in winter in the South.
I know.
But with both of us being school teachers, we think it's the best time to make a two to two and a half week trip down under.
So, basically, their goal is to see New Zealand and then the Great Barrier Reef off of Australia's coast.
So they were thinking an open jaw trip, with a flight in between.
And he said that they're gonna have about a 100,000 chase points, a 100,000 Amex points, and roughly a 150,000 sky miles.
They're trying to spend all their points before they all get devalued again.
Great strategy, Ryan.
And he said that they don't really care about first in business class.
They're very happy in economy.
So his question directly is, what are the sweet spot mile redemptions to Australia or New Zealand?
Do you have anything off the top of your head?
You know, the best one that I can think of is, you know, you've got a lot of Delta SkyMiles to play around with.
And at minimum, you know, you could wait for Delta SkyMiles slash sale that works with your travel dates, which, you know, if you're planning to do this in North American summer, odds are better that you're gonna find a rate that you like.
Book that now.
Book a round trip for you know, we've seen it in even in main cabin for as low as 60,000 ish sky miles round trip.
And then that locks something in where, you know, you're maybe using a 120, a 130,000 Delta Sky miles to lock in a trip, and then you bought yourself some time to research some other options, wait for an even better deal to come in.
And if it does, so long as you booked a Delta main cabin ticket using your SkyMiles, you can instantly cancel that, get those SkyMiles right back as well as all
of your taxes and fees refunded.
Yeah.
That's a great option.
The SkyMiles, Flash, so you can actually book those open jaw some of the time too, especially if New Zealand and Sydney, go on sale at the same time.
We have seen where you can book those open jaw, which is just a great way to do it.
And then you just gotta find your way in between those two cities, which is honestly not going to be hard.
And those two tend to go together.
So when Delta reduces award rates on Sydney, they do it for Auckland and vice versa.
Yeah.
We've also seen some pretty good cash stuff down to Australia and New Zealand lately.
So if you wanna check out the Chase travel portal and just see what kind of value you can get for your miles in there, maybe booking something, you know, with, quote, unquote, cash using your Chase points through that travel portal is a good way to do that as well.
So we also had a message from friends, Denise and David from Georgia, who are husband and wife who just got their Chase Sapphire Preferred bonuses.
So they're sitting on 220 k Chase points, and they wanna use it on their flights to New Zealand this winter.
They're hoping for something a little comfier.
They were saying that, they've flown economy all over the world, and maybe they've seen enough of the competition.
It's a good place to splurge.
Yeah.
So they said that they're looking.
They can't quite find exactly what they're looking for, and then they signed their email distraught in Georgia.
So any advice for Denise and David?
Yeah.
The best one, and I think this is yours as well, is, to try to book a Fiji Airways business class, with a stopover in Fiji.
You can you can build in a, you know, a multi day stopover.
You can just book a quick connection from the West Coast.
I would say in particular, San Francisco is where we tend to see the best availability, flying to Fiji and then onward to a place like Sydney.
You know, being able to book that for as low as 78,000, British Airways Avios each way.
There are better deals.
There are probably better ways period to get to Australia in a lie flat seat.
But especially with Australia, you kinda gotta pick your battles.
Unfortunately, you can't transfer those chase points to Qantas, which on the one hand, is gonna be much easier to find the flights that you want.
On the other hand, the rates are probably too high to be able to do this with a single or even two credit card bonuses, especially if you're trying to do this round trip.
So if you're willing to, you know, sacrifice a little bit of the convenience with a connection in the name of comfort, you know, connecting through Fiji flying Fiji Airways from the West Coast is probably the best way to go.
Yeah.
I'm kinda dying to do that Fiji stopover, especially because, we have seen it's, you know, relatively easy to book.
Obviously, not always easy if you check the dates that you exactly want, and it's not there, please don't at me.
But that is one that I've had my eye on for a long time.
I think would be a really fun way to get down under with a quick stop in Fiji.
Why not hit the beach for a day or two on the way back?
If you want us to answer your question, email us at podcast@thriftytraveler.com, and we might feature it on next week's show.
Kyle, it's my turn to put you on the spot.
You ready?
No.
And guess what?
It's a special two parter on the spot for Kyle
Potter.
Thanks.
Alright.
The first is a message from a really loyal and prolific Thrifty Traveler premium subscriber named Todd, who wrote us from a very special place.
He sent this to me yesterday.
So I'm currently enjoying day one on our trip to Hermitage Bay Resort of Via Small Luxury Hotels of the World in Hilton in Antigua, open parenthesis.
The hype is very real and well deserved.
He said, the food, service, and accommodations are certainly some of the best I've ever experienced.
Wow.
I can't thank you enough for this adventure as it's because you and your team that my wife and I are able to experience this adventure.
And I never even knew this luxury property existed all because of my Thrifty Traveler premium subscription and Kyle Potter's, beautiful review on our website.
Cheers to you and your team, he said.
So I was really excited to hear from Todd, who I actually talked to right after he booked this a few months ago.
And then he followed up from Hermitage Bay.
I thought to sit down and type out an email to me to praise you and you finding that deal for our flight or our hotels alert team.
So any words for Todd who's sitting on the beach right now?
I was just waiting for a question.
This on the spot just feels like you praising me, which is really, really uncomfortable.
No.
Todd, I'm glad you love it.
I if nothing else, I'm gratified to hear other people, back up the hype that I gave it.
I think it's a truly, truly special place.
Yeah.
I think you're you're the one who kinda just put this on my radar, and it seems like just unbelievable.
And, I was just really excited to hear from Todd and had to pass it along to you today during the show.
Alright.
Part two of on the spot.
So, Kyle, you are smart guy?
No.
An accomplished journalist?
Closer.
A thought leader in the world of travel?
No.
I'm so uncomfortable with that.
Alright.
Fine.
You're a you're a serious man in many ways, but something that people don't know about you is that you were a fan of the exceptionally trashy reality TV series, Love Island.
Kyle, I'm happy to announce that during my baby leave, I've started watching Love Island.
The real version.
No.
I'm watching I'm watching USA that
you No.
See, I won't participate in this discourse.
I would much more gladly participate in the hot flight summer than talk about Love Island USA, which I do not recognize.
Look.
Love Island USA is my entry is my gateway drug to Love Island UK, which is airing concurrently, and you can't possibly watch both never mind.
There's too many episodes.
I'd be, like, 60 episodes deep by now.
I can't I can't do it.
It's a lot.
It's a lot of content.
I'm gonna watch UK after USA is done.
But anyway, I'm completely hooked on Love Island.
So I have a question for you.
Among our last five unicorn alerts that we've sent, which one would you couple up with, and which one would you dump from the island?
To remind you to remind you, our last five unicorn alerts were Japan Airlines first class, Chicago to Tokyo.
We have Emirates first class to Dubai.
We had Etihad first class to Abu Dhabi, Qantas first class to Sydney, and then the Cathay Pacific first class and business class combo to Australia, New Zealand, and Southeast Asia.
You need to pick one to couple up with, and one gets dumped from the island.
I would couple up with the Etihad first class unicorn alert because of the big three, Emirates and, Qatar as well as Etihad, that's the one I haven't yet flown.
So I'd love to fly the apartments, especially on a, you know, fourteen, fifteen hour flight instead of, you know, a more boring, but still quite fun six, seven hour flight from Abu Dhabi to Europe or back.
So that would be that one.
And on that token, I would dump from the island Emirates first class, for two reasons.
One, I've already very fortunately done it.
I think once was enough.
I would I like to do it more, of course, but I'm I'm happy having done it once.
And two, you know, that deal is now, you know, largely meaningless to me because unless if we see another tranche of award availability bookable through Qantas, which we can't rule out.
But unless if that comes up, my ability to book it is gone.
So, you know, it doesn't hurt quite as much.
It's not a brutal dumping like we often see on Love Island UK, not USA.
Okay.
Alright.
This is that's good to hear.
Hard to pick from that list which one you would get rid of.
So good on you, Kyle.
I think that's gonna be it for us.
Thank you so much for listening to the Thrifty Traveler podcast.
If you would, please rate us five stars on your podcast platform of choice, and then head over to YouTube to watch us in our beautiful studio.
Like and subscribe to us over there as well, please.
And then, take this episode, send it to somebody that needs to know that it's easier than ever to use your points and miles.
It's hot flight summer over here at Thrifty Traveler.
If you have feedback for us, please send me a note, podcast@thriftytraveler.com.
We would love to hear from you there.
Kyle, tell us about the rest of the Thrifty Traveler podcast team.
Yeah.
This episode was produced by our senior editor, Jackson Newman, and your favorite hot flight summer loving host, Gunnar Olsen.
It was edited by David Strutt.
Our theme music is by Benjamin Tissot.
See you next week.
See you.