A year ago, we saw signs award travel was on the upswing … but in 2026, we’re not so sure. Airlines’ constant tweaks to their mileage programs - not just for the rates they charge, but who can even book - have us posing the question: Is the points party ending? Are we on a sinking ship? Not to get too negative, but it’s time for a reality check. So Kyle and Gunnar break down the new trends shaping award travel while offering some hope and guidance for travelers worried about their rewards.
A year ago, we saw signs award travel was on the upswing … but in 2026, we’re not so sure. Airlines’ constant tweaks to their mileage programs - not just for the rates they charge, but who can even book - have us posing the question: Is the points party ending? Are we on a sinking ship? Not to get too negative, but it’s time for a reality check. So Kyle and Gunnar break down the new trends shaping award travel while offering some hope and guidance for travelers worried about their rewards.
00:00 - What deals are on our "Endangered Redemptions” list?
03:05 - Kyle from a mountaintop & Gunnar’s roast review challenge
04:15 - The road ahead in points and miles: This is more than “Pointsflation”
07:20 - Are partner redemptions on their way out?
12:30 - What is United doing with their credit cards?
17:45 - Are U.S. travelers getting boxed out?
24:00 - (Annoying) transfer ratios are shifting, too
27:45 - A word from us: Stay on top of your points & miles with The Extra Mile Newsletter
28:15 - What’s driving the shift in award travel?
33:00 - Are we being too negative?
36:30 - The great (& new) redemption opportunities out there
42:00 - How to fight back against the changing award travel landscape
44:28 - Real talk: Is the points party over?
46:40 - Listener Question: How many points should you hoard?
50:40 - On the Spot: The redemption that got away
Produced and edited by Sylvia Thomas
Video editing by Kyle Thomas
Show music: “All That” by Benjamin Tissot
Welcome to the show. I am Gunnar, as always with Thrifty Traveler, executive editor Kyle Potter. Today, Kyle, we're doing a deep dive on the future of award travel and all the ways that we see it changing right before our eyes. And I wanna be really clear. Changes are already happening and more changes coming.
Uh, things aren't gonna be the same way that they were five years ago, or last year, or even yesterday. We've learned that in points and miles. Couple months of doing a podcast. Are you about to break out the, the only constant is change. I am in, uh, way more words and way less eloquently than that. Live, laugh, love.
But for award travel That's right. We should put it on some wooden plaques and put them around our office. Maybe up in the kitchen. Yeah. It's like asterisk than cur, curly cues around it. Exactly. Um. But you know, I don't, I don't want this to be all doom and gloom. 'cause I think we both agree that there's still a ton of opportunity out there and points and miles, especially if you're paying attention.
So, to illustrate this whole point, Kyle, I wanna start with one thing. Um. What points and miles redemptions are you most worried about? What is too good to last? What is on your endangered redemptions list? Well, let me preface that with, with a point we have published over the years, a handful of times a story that is too good to last, you know, five or seven points deals that are endanger.
Uh, that you should book ASAP. And the last time we published that, five of the seven were gone within a matter of six months or less. So our track record on this, uh, is, is unfortunately quite good right now. I think that the one that's top of mind for me is still. Iberia business class award rates on that flying from the United States to Spain and back have increased over the last year or so, but it's still such a great deal.
And so whether Iberia just gets more restrictive with how often it allows people to book those seats, period, or they again, start charging more miles. So currently it's as low as 40,500. Avios, Iberia, Avios, uh, British Airways, avios, whichever each way. Or they increase that rate again? Um, it's not outta the question.
I mean, and this is the thing is, you know, we're trying not to be doom and gloom. I am not just a pessimist, but a little bit of a fatalist. So it's kind of just in my nature, I'm gonna do my best to, um, avoid going into too deep of a hole. But that said, the point of this is to put it on people's radar so they know.
That there are a lot of potentially limited time opportunities here. And so if you've got something on your list and you're saying, I wanna do this in 2027, I want to do it in 2028. No. Start thinking about this stuff for 2026 because the only constant is change and change in this world is very rarely positive.
Yep. That's exactly what we're talking about today on the show. It's an existential crisis for two points and Miles. Rider. We're looking at the future of points and miles and asking the question is the points. Party over all that and more. Welcome back to the Thrifty Traveler Podcast.
All right, we're back. Introducing the show this week. Was you, Kyle, that was you. From Atop of Mountain in Palm Springs. What? We're all hiking as a group, as a thrifty traveler team. And then the next second, I see you scurrying up, scaling a mountain and you got to the top and looked down at us and the only thing I could think of was to ask you to introduce the show and you did a great job.
Thank you. I did. I do a good job screwing up. You did graceful as always, the way down. Little clunkier. Yeah. It wasn't, wasn't my finest moment. Yeah. Um, if you want us to feature your video on the next episode, upload it to thrifty traveler.com/voicemail. We wanna hear you introduce the show and I know you can beat Kyle's video there.
Uh, also we've noticed that a lot of you have found the show over the past month and I'm really fired up about it. New friends. What's not to love? We've got two. We've got two now. Uh, if you're enjoying the show, please consider giving us a five star rating on Apple Podcasts and write a review. It really helps other people find the show and get exposed to all these good deals and travel insights.
And for the next few weeks, I'm running a challenge, right? Whoever can roast me the best in their five star review, we'll get the review read aloud on the show. Everything's fair game, my hairline. My hair color, whatever you got. If it's mean, that's okay, but it has to be funny too. That's the rule. Okay. Um, it's time for the extra mile where we're gonna dig deep on an important travel topic, and this week we're digging deep on the road ahead for award travel, all things, points and miles.
So Kyle, we're used to this, uh, this. This phrase we call points deflation, where just award rates are creeping up, right? I think this is a little different than that. What is the difference between points, deflation and what we're talking about here? Yeah, so whether we call it points, legislation, devaluation, it's just speak for award rate increases.
So over time, and, and not just recently, but you know, for the entire three decades of frequent flyer programs, airlines just steadily increase the cost of booking. An award flight using miles. It happens every year. Um, some, some programs go longer without doing that than others, but that has been par for the course and it has definitely accelerated within the last four or five years, let's call it.
But there are two sides to the coin. Anytime you book a ticket using miles, there is the award rate, how many miles it costs to book the flight. The second half of that, the, arguably the much more important half of it. Is the award availability is the airline whose seat you're trying to book, in fact, allowing you to book that seat with Miles.
And you know what this show is all about. What we wanna hash out today is it seems to me that a lot of the changes that airlines are making and probably will continue making in the months and years ahead. May not just be about the award rate charging more miles for the same flight and more shifting into rethinking how they think about award availability, especially at the front of the cabin in business and first class.
And I think it's so, so important in large part because so much of the conversations about points and miles now are. On, so happening on social media with people who are trying to help people travel more for less and trying to show them how to earn points to do all of these really cool things. But they're only talking about half of the equation, how many points you need.
And what we need to do is level set expectations for. Whether these really cool Japan Airlines business class or a NA first class cabins that look great on social media are actually attainable because that is what is shifting so rapidly. Increasingly is, is how airlines are thinking about their loyalty programs and how much harder it has already become and will continue to get in order to book them.
Yeah, I think we talk about it all the time and it's been. The game, you know, capital T, capital G, the game in points and miles for a long time. Are these partner award redemptions, right? Using, uh, Virgin or flying blue to book a Delta flight or using Air Canada to book a united flight or the other way around?
In some cases, um. It seems that partner redemptions are maybe what's at stake the most here, right? Definitely. I mean, so much of the game, was that a Michael Douglas movie? I think it was. I think so. He's, he is not a part of this. Come on out, Michael Douglas. Um, what were we talking about? The partner redemptions.
Are they on their way out? Yes, with a very important caveat that it's going to take a lot of time for them to be on the way out. But I think the, the biggest trend that we're seeing is that airlines are getting much, much stingier with releasing award availability to be booked with. Partner. So to your point, the heart of the game, the heart of traveling more for less using miles is not using Delta sky miles to fly Delta or using Air Canada Aeroplan miles to fly Air Canada.
It's using transferable points. Sending them to one of a dozen or more different airline programs that allows you to book a flight for fewer points than you could otherwise book it for. So instead of paying 57,500 advantage miles to fly from Chicago to Madrid, in Iberia business class, you send 40,000.
Miles to British Airways or Iberia and sometimes less with a transfer bonus, and then book that same flight for significantly fewer points. I mean, there are so many different variations of, of doing this and a lot of what we do, um, you know, of what we write about every day and what our premium team puts in their email alerts is helping people pinpoint exactly that.
And over the last. I don't know, two-ish years, maybe a little bit more the, the, the opportunities to take advantage of these workarounds just keep getting closed and it just feels like it's only going to accelerate. Yeah, it feels like the airlines are trying to keep these redemptions in-house. You know, why would, um, let's say Cafe Pacific, who, cafe Pacific Asia Miles are a really good example of this, where cafe is keeping a lot of their best redemptions kind of in their program, whereas.
Maybe in the past few years they used to release some business class or first class awards to American and let you know people with American Airlines advantage Miles book those seats instead. But maybe Cafe is thinking now, well why would we let people outside of our program, why wouldn't you just keep these for Asian miles holders?
Right. E exactly. That's a perfect example. And so, you know, yeah, you could book a nonstop from the United States to Hong Kong flying Cafe Pacific for, uh, business class for 70,000 advantage miles each way. You could also book that for as low as 50,000 Alaska Mileage Plan or Alaska Atmos rewards miles each way, but those days are over.
And so if you want to fly Cafe Pacific Business class with a few exceptions, which we'll get into later in the show, you need to transfer your points to Cafe Pacific. Pay a lot more points in order to book those flights, in many cases, closer to a hundred thousand points or even more each way. So, and, and that is one really important, I would say recent example of which there are so many years ago, um, not even, you know, 3, 4, 5 years ago, like two years ago, it was so easy to book EVA air business class using United Mileage plus miles or.
Air Canada, Aeroplan or Avianca Life miles for under 80,000 miles each way. And you could do that for two passengers. You could book six plus months out. In many cases, 11 months out was a very easy, reliable redemption. For the last year and a half or so, you cannot really book those seats period, unless if you're booking within, you know, like a, a month or less, in some cases, two weeks or less in advance, and typically only with one seed.
If you're trying to book that. Cheaper partner, award redemption. You can, however, still very easily book EVA air business class using Eva's own miles, which you can transfer from Capital One and Citi, but the rates aren't as good and you have to transfer, especially with Capital one miles, much more miles because it's not a one-to-one transfer ratio like it is with so many other partner airline programs.
Qantas has been a, a huge one in this. You know, we occasionally see, you know, these flights bookable. To Australia using American advantage Miles, but very few and far between. And so you're talking about, you know, forking over a hundred thousand miles or more to book that same business class seat that you could previously book for as low as 70,000 advantage miles each way.
Emirates is doing a lot of this. They have actually just cut out a lot of their partners in addition to making changes to um, their transfer partner options. Singapore, United, United is probably the worst one, right. Yeah, I would say yeah, United is definitely one of the worst ones and we're gonna take a good look at what United is doing because, uh, I think, you know, their recent changes were kind of the impetus for a lot of this conversation as well, including the fact that United is now taking this credit card holder discount and, um, making it a big thing.
Obviously Delta started with this, with their, uh, I believe it's called Takeoff 15 benefit, where if you. Have one of the Delta Sky miles American Express credit cards that has an annual fee. So the gold card, the platinum card, or the reserve card, you get 15% off award bookings when you're flying Delta.
This doesn't work for their partners. Um, United has taken this a step further. What are we seeing from United? Well, what we first saw starting, you know, probably sometime in early to mid 2025, was, you know, it used to be pretty easy to book. Virtually any United Polaris business class flight from the US to Europe or the US even to Tahiti, and in some cases over to.
Asia using Air Canada Aeroplan Miles. So you could book for 60,000 Aeroplan miles flying from like Chicago to London instead of 80,000 United Miles. And that that partner award availability really started to disappear about a year or so ago. Give or take a few months. And what has become clear is that instead of letting people book those business class seats with Aeroplan Miles or Avianca Life Miles, or another Star Alliance program that charges fewer miles, what they're doing is they're holding that award space for people who either have a co-branded United Mileage Plus credit card.
Or status with the airline in order to tease a lower rate. And so what they're doing is they're not doling the space out to book for whichever airline program is gonna let you book for the fewest amount of miles. They are turning it into an incentive to get a credit card and spend on it or fly so frequently with United that you get better deals by virtue of earning status.
I would give them so much credit if I didn't. Hate it so much, but the reality is, is it's pretty genius for doing what United is trying to do, which is drive credit card signups and drive credit card revenue. And the reality is. This is so genius. It is going to catch on across the entire industry. I would be shocked if a year from today, if not sooner, Delta doesn't revamp its takeoff 15 benefit and make it even more substantial to make those credit cards and earning delta sky miles more alluring.
Yeah, this what United has done has completely worked on me to the point where I, I now think that I might need to hold one of their United Chase co-branded credit cards. You know, you see the Polaris flight and the price that I'm quoted is, you know, 80,000 United Miles for a cross country flight. And then it says, well, if you held the, uh, the United Chase card, you would have a 30,000 point redemption on this flight.
And it's just. It is really smart. I'm sure Delta is going to start incorporating this into some of their tech saying, you know, man, if you, if you held this credit card, it would show up as this price instead. Um, but the fact that the, the. Price decreases are so much when you hold a card, is something that's very interesting too.
And I'm sure this is all dynamic and, and United is working on figuring out exactly kind of how to tailor these fares. But, um, it's impressive. It is annoying and it's not, not a good trend for the industry, but United has done a really good job of making their cards feel as essential as Deltas for their.
Travelers Well, and that's the name of the game. Like we, we can talk about loyalty pro programs, but the reality is, is that for you and I, they're very transactional. We have our credit card points, we send them to whichever airline program, many of which, neither of us have ever flown. I have never flown Avianca, I have never flown Air Canada.
I have used their miles repeatedly to book flights because I can transfer my credit card points from American Express or Chase or Capital One to them and save a lot of mileage in the process. United is looking at this entire ecosystem that is bigger than ever of, you know, Americans having not.
Millions, but probably billions if not close to trillions of points and saying, you know what? We don't really want those people. What we want are truly loyal customers. And the best way to do that is to convince someone to sign up for a credit card spend on that credit card, fly united so much to earn status.
So it's just, it makes that hamster wheel of getting people obsessed with your airline so much more alluring and mo much more powerful when you're actually on it. Yeah, that's the name of the game. So really quickly, I know a lot of um, or the US Airlines deal with a very different credit card environment than the rest of the world does, but we've seen some international airlines kind of start bringing a little bit of this into practice, but it's in the form of subscriptions.
What can you tell me about those? Well, I mean, it is a little bit of both, you know, air France and KLM recently just made some pretty significant changes to their. Co-branded US Airline credit card, which certainly is not the most popular thing for American travelers, but they're trying to make it more popular.
At the same time, both Air France and and Avianca with Life Miles have introduced these subscription models. They're both a little different, um, but they're, but what they're trying to do is get people to get more engaged with. Their airline program and then their airline. So it's not, again, so transactional of, I transfer my chase points to Air France, I book a Delta flight, and that is the last time I do anything with Air France.
You give people some skin in the game and hope that you get hooks into them so you can keep them coming back. That's what they're trying to do. It's, it's in many ways very similar to what United is trying to do. Just on a smaller scale. Yeah. Yeah. A little bit different. Okay. I wanna talk a little bit more about, um, some of these differences between.
Us travelers and, and travelers abroad when using these programs. Um, obviously we've told people for years, you know, look into these foreign programs. All the best value is there, all the best redemptions is there, especially if you wanna fly upfront. Um. Maybe, maybe we overdid it. As Americans, we've been using these programs too much because it looks like a lot of these foreign carriers are starting to throttle back on what they're allowing us to book.
Tell me about some of these limitations. You know, it's, again, this is that other half of the coin of award rate versus award availability and what has been clear for at least two years, if not a little bit longer, is that while. Foreign airlines do want some of this action. They want a slice of the pie because every time you redeem points, that airline is getting money from that.
But it's clear that, you know, many of these foreign airlines have started to look much more skeptically at how much of that action they really want. And because the market of travelers with. Points in the United States is so much laughably bigger than anywhere else, including even Canada, because we have, we basically allowed credit card companies here in the United States to charge higher fees every time you swipe a credit card, which funds the points and the benefits that again, just dwarf everywhere else in the coun in the world, and it's not even close.
So because of that, airlines are making very targeted decisions about not allowing US travelers or travelers that they believe are in the us. To book the same flights that other people in other corners of the globe are, are, it's just easier for them. So the, the one that is just so crystal clear now more than ever is Qatar Airways.
We've talked about Q Suites on the show. We've written ad nauseum about how amazing that business class cabin is. It has become. Borderline impossible to book any Q Suite flight using American Advantage Miles or Alaska Atmos rewards it is just not really feasible, and that's true of United States departures.
So flying from the United States to Doha or back, or with a connection onward into the Middle East or vice versa. But it's also. You know, evolved to the point where, you know, a year ago you could pretty easily book Qatar business class from Doha to Thailand or Japan or down to Australia or something.
And now if you're trying to book that using American Advantage Miles, you're not gonna find any of those flights with very few exceptions. But if you search with another program like Qar Zone, Avios, another one World Airline like Qantas or uh, Japan Airlines, it is. Much, much easier to book, which says to me that Qatar is looking at people who they believe are American travelers who have more miles than anybody else, and they're saying, you know what?
We're good on this one. We don't need their points. Yeah, especially if, uh, if they can get people from Qatar to pay $8,000 for those seats instead. I'm sure they'd rather have that also. Uh, I thought we agreed that we were calling Atmos. Just atmos, not Atmos rewards. I think Atmos should also be the plural, like Avios, I'm really pushing for this and I need you to oblige me here.
No. Okay. Are, are we gonna carve out two minutes for a debate? Nobody wants that. I don't want that. We can, how many atmos do you need to book that flight? That's how we should be talking about it. Not Atmos rewards don't play into their favorite cop. I don't want any part of this conversation right now. Um, when you look outside the US, any, any other programs or regions of the world that are specifically good or bad for this?
It. You know, this one's a little bit weird because on the one hand, Virgin Atlantic is a, not a US airline. Um, certainly has plenty of flights here, but for many, many years, Virgin Atlantic has been the go-to way to book a NA business class to and from the United States over to Tokyo and back, and in just within the last probably six months.
You cannot book a business class seat using a, uh, Virgin Atlantic miles, um, on a and a business class anymore. It is not an option. It was never available to do it online, but you could call in and you might find a WordSpace 14 to 21 days in advance, and within the last six months you cannot book those seats almost at all.
Our, our premium team has tried this repeatedly and it just is not an option anymore, which again, says to me that a NA knows that this is how many people were flying their, their best business class seats using miles, and they said, you know what? We're just not gonna let you do that. Yeah, because, because the rates were so much lower than virtually any other option.
Yeah, this was on my endangered redemptions list and, and I fear that it has passed endangered at this point. I've seen a few anecdotes online of like someone who, who lucked into something by getting a good agent on the phone, but I, I don't, I'm not even sure those ticketed. So yeah, I think this one is, is sadly gone and it was definitely my favorite way to fly to Japan.
One of my favorite flights of my life. Best redemption of my life. Probably two. Um. What about Canada? Canada's still getting a lot of love, which, oh no, no. You gotta change that to, yes, the Canada button is back in action, but it is inaccurate. This, this to me is, is really interesting and I think it shows the motivations of what airlines are doing, that it's generally speaking.
Much harder, not impossible, but much harder to find a business class seat, say flying Air France to Paris or KLM to Amsterdam from many United States cities with nonstop service. But if you look from Toronto or Montreal, or even Ottawa, it can be wide open. Which again, the points markets are just so different.
We, Americans have so many millions, if not billions of more miles who redeem on those flights than do our neighbors to the north. And so Air France and KLM know they can be much more liberal with that. Yeah, definitely. Um, I wanna talk another about another way that some of these foreign airlines are fighting back.
Um, and that is with what is one of the most annoying changes that I've seen in this points and miles space. It's, it's not like the most crucial, like the most debilitating change, obviously the, uh, award space being released to us in, you know, just way, way less award space being released to us is way worse.
But this one is just annoying for my small, small brain. And this is the. Less than one-to-one transfer ratios. Some of these ratios are just awful. What? What are we seeing with these? And do you hate this as much as I do? I do because I am incapable of doing math. I'm a journalist by trade, which means I cannot remember how to calculate a percentage change.
I Google percentage change calculator at least once a week, if that makes me dumb. I, I accept that I get the Google or Google Chrome gives me, you've visited the site often. I'm like, oh, that's really embarrassing. I just, for my own like emotional wellbeing, I don't have it in me to bookmark it on my browser, but I really should.
No, this is. It's, it's really annoying, but again, it's, it's telling. So this started, let, let's be clear, one-to-one, transfer ratios have not just been the gold standard of transferring points from Chase and American Express and Capital One to whichever airline. It's also really been the norm, uh, because it's simple.
It's easy. It may, there's less friction with that. You go into that experience like with a more positive experience, knowing that your 50,000 Amex points become Emir 50,000 Emirates sky boards miles. But with just within the last couple of months, Emirates has decreased almost all of its transfer ratio.
So those are no longer one-to-one. And apparently in trying to force Chase to change that. Chase just said, nah, we're good. We're just not gonna be a transfer partner with you anymore, so you can no longer transfer your chase points now in isolation. I think that would be okay. Emirates is just making a decision for itself and it feels differently about these, you know, again, primarily US-based travelers and their credit card points than they did a couple of years ago.
That's fine, but late last year. Cafe Pacific and American Express announced that they would be doing the same thing effective March 1st. So now we have two of the highest rated airlines in the world saying very clearly we don't want US travelers points as much as we used to, which. I would be shocked if that doesn't spread to other, um, cafe Pacific, Asia Mile transfer partners like Capital One in the, you know, weeks and months to come.
I would also be shocked if this doesn't, you know, spread to additional major airlines. So the prospect of, you know, the days of a reliable one-to-one transfer from all of the major banks to your airline of choice spreading feels really, really high right now. Yeah, the, uh, the whole, I'm transferring 1000 of my Amex points and it's turning into 750 of whatever miles is just, it's really brutal.
It's annoying. It's, it's like a, just another version of this kind of devaluation. And it's these airlines telling the banks, like you said, uh, we don't really want Americans points, we want rich Americans to just pay the full fare. And, uh, that's the. You know, unfortunately that's the cost for us as, uh, award travelers who are looking to take advantage of these things.
Um, I think. We're gonna get more into the why of all of this. Uh, talk about kind of the, uh, more of the motivations for these airlines and what else we're looking at in the award travel landscape. But first, we're gonna take a quick break. We're going to the extra mile in award travel on the pod today, diving deep into the trends that are driving points and miles deals.
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Alright, back to the show. Alright, welcome back. Thanks for staying with us. I know this, a lot of this stuff feels pretty negative, but we're gonna explain it to you and show you a few good opportunities for you as well. But Kyle, what is driving this whole change, this whole shift in award travel? I mean, it's, it's really not just one thing, but I think a big piece of this is, you know, ties back to a show that we did a a couple of months ago.
Tied firmly to the overall boom in premium travel and that this is where airlines see that the most money is to be made. And increasingly, they are not having a hard time selling those $1,500 premium economy seats or $3,000 business class fairs, especially to American travelers that the group of wealthy travelers who are willing and able to spend money is both.
Bigger than it has ever been, and also wealthier than it's ever been. And that is a group worth catering to, and that comes at the expense of people like you and I and people listening to this who also have way more points than probably any other time in recorded history. I mean, the awareness of what we talk about.
Points and miles have really gone mainstream, I think in large part because of social media post pandemic. So not only is there more demand for these seats, but there's also more demand of people trying to book these seats with points and miles and something's gotta come to a head. And so if an airline has a choice between selling a seat for $3,000 or letting you book it for 60,000 miles.
They're gonna sell it for cash every single day and twice on Sunday. Yeah. They, they do not want a guy like me sitting in business class hammering the call button, asking for another red wine every 35 minutes. They want a, they want a businessman up there who's gonna spend full fare and not think about it.
Who's not gonna go crazy when he sees his free socks that he was given or his amenity kit. They don't want people like me up there, uh, not just because of my behavior. An overall attitude, it's be, it's because you put on your socks in the middle of the cabin, which no fly list immediately. That's right.
That's right. They want people up there who are on, you know, expense accounts or are, you know, wealthy people from the Atlanta suburbs or New York City, or are just people who are gonna pay full boat. That's the easiest money that they make. Uh, it's way harder money to make when I'm spending 60,000 points and, uh, using all their amenities and drinking 'em dry.
No, no comment on the last bit. Uh, you do, you Gunner. I mean, I think the other piece is that we're now like more than a decade into this journey of foreign airlines looking at this growing points market here in the United States and saying, yeah, I want a slice of that. There is good money there because that's true.
You know, again, every time you redeem points, even on a partner airline award redemption flying. United business class using 60,000 Aeroplan Miles. United is getting cash as a piece of that transaction. But I think what has really started to happen, and a big piece of what is also driving these negative changes is that a lot of airlines are waking up to the cost of.
That transactional relationship. So yeah, they get some money from the bank every time you transfer points or you know, they get some money from the airline every time you redeem your miles. But when it comes to you and I who transfer the points, book the flight, and then we never interact with that airline again.
That is not the point of a loyalty program. The point of a loyalty program is to encourage loyalty, which again. Is what is driving United to make the changes that it's doing and why it's become so much stingier to allow you to book their best business class seats using miles from Air Canada or Avianca life Miles.
It is why I think Emirates knows that, you know somebody who uses 102,000 miles to fly Emirate's first class from JFK to Milan. Probably isn't going to come back and spend 12 K on that flight the next time because they're like, oh, well this was really great. They're one and done. They're never gonna do it again.
Or if they are gonna do it again, they're just gonna transfer another 102,000 points because they have millions of them. Those are not the customers that these airlines want. And so they're making these really structural changes in how they think about their rewards program to kind of shut that door.
Yeah, they, they, they do not want us, uh, dear listener, they're, we are uninvited guests in this, uh, this whole scheme. But I mean, really there is still some opportunity out there. So my question to you is, Kyle, why are you being so negative about this? Because it's in my DNA man. No. You know, like I started the show with.
There is so much more attention on these topics than there has ever been. There are more people listening to this podcast than there have ever been. It's a low bar, but it's there. It's improvement, it's growth. My my concern is that because the biggest and loudest voices driving this outsized attention to award travel.
Are really almost solely focused on opening credit cards to earn points. And then they use these flashy business class redemptions to sell us on it. And it's great. I mean, and look, we do that too. We need to be honest and accountable for our peace in this. But there is that other half of the coin, which is can you actually book that seat that you're showing people?
And so. For every influencer who has posted something or every blogger who has wrote a story about, look at this, A NA business class seat from Chicago to Tokyo Haida. You can book it for 52,500 Virgin Atlantic points. Open this credit card and you'll have enough for roundtrip flights. The next sentence in that, the first sentence of in that should have been in practice and on paper you can book this.
In practice, you cannot. It is not an option. And so as more doors close for these really awesome redemptions, we need to be honest and set expectations with people about what is actually practical and what is not truly an option. Yeah. And you know, without making this too much about ourselves, you know, oh look, there's my navel, uh, this is exactly what we're doing at Thrifty Traveler Premium, is we are bridging this gap, right?
We're, we're showing you, here are the points to earn. Here is exactly how to use those points. And oh, by the way, if you're a, a premium subscriber, here are the dates that you can use those points to fly that, that seat that you wanted to book. So, um, I'm really proud of the fact that, that we do that and we're not just talking about the, here's the card.
Here are the points. Look at how pretty the seat is. We need to get with the point, the getting the points from that point into the seat. I could have said this a lot better. You're nailing this. Keep going. And just so everybody knows, when Gunner said, oh look, there's my navel. If you're watching on YouTube, he did actually show his belly button on camera.
I did. That one's for free. Um, okay, let's, let's get positive. Um, there are upsides in this. We talk about them all the time. Our premium members know of all the upsides at this point. We send them out. Uh, we send award deals to our members every single day. So, um, what are, what are the next big upsides? What should people be looking out for?
Where are the opportunities? I, I mean, I think by and large, the biggest opportunities for now are still in the economy cabin. I think that doesn't mean it's gonna be the case forever, but for the most part, economy, redemptions and economy availability has not changed substantially in the last couple of years.
So, you know, in, in our. Show about the premium travel boom. I am still, I was worried. I am still worried that over time all of this emphasis on premium cabin travel is going to come at the expense of economy capacity. And that would eventually hurt exactly what I'm talking about. But for now, I think we're in good shape.
So if all you care about is getting to Europe, or Japan or Australia for the fewest amounts, amount of points as possible, good on you. I think you're in pretty good shape. Uh, but again, you know, so much attention is being paid to, you know, business and first class redemptions. That's where things, the picture is, is a lot blurrier.
Yeah, I mean the, the, you know, doom and gloom of the first 30 minutes of the show today is mostly focused on what's happening at the front of the plane. That's, those are the hardest award redemptions to make, and that's where, you know, they, it gets a lot of focus. But, um, for right now, I mean, just in my own personal searches, not even just premium stuff, just looking around, there are so many.
Good opportunities still to book really low rates in economy all over the world. And the space is there, right? Especially if you're willing to book out ahead, like you're gonna find that space if you're booking for multiple people. Um, economy space is often the way to go. Uh, if you're in a big family, that's where you should be focusing your points and miles for the most part.
Any other opportunities out there that jump out to you? Uh, I mean, we have another cliche phrase, but I think it's worth repeating when one door closes, another one opens. Just because this is the overall trend doesn't mean that there's going not going to be another opportunity. So yes, I think a lot of airline programs both.
At home and abroad, rethinking for the negative, what they should offer to people redeeming miles. At the same time, there are going to be other airlines who take the opposite decision and make things easier and better, and we've seen that just within the last year with Japan Airlines becoming a transfer partner of both Built and Capital One that made it.
Not just easier, but actually possible for American travelers to feasibly earn those points. And it is an awesome mileage program that is really encouraging. I think there's gonna be more airlines that do that. So, you know, just within the last few years, SAS in Copenhagen left the Star Alliance and became part of Sky Team and is now, you know.
In, in some large part owned by Air France and KLM, air France and KLM are transfer partners with all of the major banks. They've made some negative decisions about, especially award availability in the last two years or so. But I wouldn't be surprised if the door opens to SAS with being able to transfer, you know, points from any of the big banks here in the United States directly to that program, which is gonna open another door.
Um, you know, JetBlue has become more compelling it's TrueBlue points program by adding additional partners to book True Blue Points and fly on Etihad and Qatar and Condor and others at lower rates than. You know, or at better rates than many other alternatives. So there are going to continue to be additions over time, even as it feels like a lot of this stuff is being subtracted.
Yeah, I'll add one to that. Um, I'm very interested to see what Southwest does with some rapid rewards redemptions because they're adding partners, uh, like crazy speed dating around the world, adding as many international partners as they can, some of which make no sense. Um, but you know, for instance, if I was able to use.
You know, a, a reasonable redemption to use, my rapid rewards to book like a condor flight would be pretty amazing. Uh, China Airlines as a very puzzling partner of theirs as well. I mean, um, if that program got serious about some partner redemptions, that would be good too. But like you said, there's always.
Newcomers and there's always new routes, things like that, that open up more award space to people. And um, so I think the opportunities are still definitely out there because, uh, as people fold up shop and give up on the, like Chase and Emirates, they just decided, yeah, we're done. We're, we're folding up shop on this.
You know, we've had Japan Airlines come in at the exact same time. With, uh, transfers from Capital One and built so, um, plenty of opportunity out there as well. Anything else to look out for on the positive side? You know, you mentioned new routes and I think that is such a huge one. I think increasingly as the overall picture of, of booking, especially business class seats has gotten more challenging.
It has become so obvious to us and our team who searches this stuff day in and day out, that. Award space is becoming really dynamic that it changes really quickly. So while you might not be able to count on booking that business class seat that you want 11 months out, award space and business and first class seats that you can actually book is increasingly being driven by a new route.
You know, so when China Airlines and SLU add nonstop service from Phoenix to Taipei, both of those routes were bookable using transferrable credit card points. It's not anymore, but you know, in the 24, 48 hours afterwards, it was wide open. Same goes for adding additional frequencies. When you know an airline like Qantas or American decides it's gonna fly to Brisbane five times a week instead of three, all of the sudden that opens up more opportunities in a limited window to book those seats.
And especially, you know, things like. Aircraft equipment swaps, for example, when Lufthansa decided that it wasn't gonna fly a Dreamliner with, I don't know, two hundred and fifty, two hundred eighty ish seats from Denver to Munich, but instead was gonna fly an Airbus a three 80 on that route for part of the summer.
There are so many more business class seats, so many more seats, period on that route that opened the flood gates to be able to book it again for, you know, 48, 72 hours, something like that. So there are always going to be those opportunities where those seemingly small changes result in a huge opportunity.
Yeah, we go nuts for new routes. It's all the rage around the office. We love that stuff. Okay, Kyle? Um. For our listeners who are going into battle, going into points and miles, battle into the award space world, let's take them into the Armory and give them the weapons that they need to go out there. What do they need to protect themselves?
How can you. I guess what, uh, what are you equipping people with as they go out into battle in the points and miles space to avoid some of these pitfalls that we've been talking about? You're really committed to that metaphor. Yeah. Yeah, I did. Probably for the worst, but just please go with it. Uh, well, as a spear, uh, no, I'm done.
Um, I mean, you can always earn more points, right? As. All of the important caveats, do it responsibly, but you can always earn more points. And I think if you focus on earning more points, because you'll either, I mean, you're just gonna need more, especially as some of these partner award redemptions close, you're going to need to transfer them to the program with the airline that you're flying, which means you're probably going to need more of them.
So. You know, really focus in 2026 on earning more points because you may well need them and make sure that there are transferable points because you know, if you're focused only on earning American advantage miles, look, I love advantage Miles. I would love to have hundreds of thousands of them, but I wouldn't do that at the expense of earning Amex points because Amex points can become points with.
20 ish different airlines and hotel chains. Mm-hmm. So then you've got eggs in a lot of different baskets rather than in just one. So if something changes with American, for example, which we're all a little bit scared of for later this year. You, you have a lot of different options. You're not just putting all of your eggs in that one basket.
Um, and then the biggest thing is earn and burn. Earn, earn as many points as you can, but don't sit on 'em, redeem them over time, whether because of award rate increases or these kind of bigger structural changes in how airlines are thinking about availability and their loyalty programs as a whole. More doors are gonna close over time.
It's going to get more expensive. You may not be able to do it at all. So I think it's more important than ever in 2026 to book the trips that you want to take and do it quickly. Yeah. The arrows you brought into battle are doing you no good in your quiver. This is so bad. It's so bad. Gunner. Okay, I will end this discussion mercifully then with one final question.
Kyle. Is the points party over the points party is not over? But it's getting harder. It's getting a little less fun. It's getting a little more challenging. I was trying to come up with a metaphor for this. I, I got nothing. Um, I, and again, I, I truly don't want to be too negative about this, even though it is my natural impulse.
But I would rather people go into 2026 with the expectation that it's going to be harder. There are going to be fewer opportunities over time. Therefore, I'm gonna take advantage of deals when I can. That's a much better mindset to have right now than to get to the end of the year and be like, oh, those three trips I was thinking about booking for this year and next.
Suddenly those are out of reach because the airline raised award rates, or, you know, award space just isn't available anymore. Yeah, I don't think the points party is over. I think if, if I wanted to do some sort of strained metaphor, it would be, I think they're turning the lights on though. And you know, the airlines are, have figured out what we're doing right and they're trying to combat it in their own ways.
But like we said, they're. Like the opportunities for booking new routes. And when new airline partnerships are formed, these things will never stop happening. As long as airlines exist, they're going to merge and create new partnerships and launch new routes, because that's what airlines do. And I, I think overall, when I listen to what you've been saying in this show, I think speed really matters a lot in this stuff, especially if you wanna take advantage of this and, and, uh, celebrate.
The points party. I think you just need to work quickly when things change, because that's where the opportunity is. It's, it's in a, a few days, if not hours, sometimes after these things change. So be nimble, be agile. How's this for a final closing metaphor? I don't think the lights are turning on just yet.
I think there's a lot of people at the party who are, uh, lapping their legs with a. Well, and starting that Minnesota goodbye. There's a lot of signs that people are ready to leave. They haven't left yet. Oh, that Midwest. Goodbye. That gruesome 45 minutes where you, you have to say goodbye to everyone and someone hands you a new beer.
Oh, well, I guess I'll stay for one more. Didn't we hug already? I'm not gonna ask. It's weird. This is awkward. We are in the Midwest Goodbye of the points party. That is the perfect metaphor. Kyle, can we help a listener? Let's do it. Okay. Um, before we do that really quickly, uh, a reminder to send your travel brag.
You are welcome back to the Thrifty Traveler video to thrifty traveler.com/voicemail. You can find the link in the show notes. Leave us a message under one minute. That's thrifty traveler.com/voicemail to leave us that message. Okay, our listener this week is Henry. Henry wrote in and, uh, at the risk of.
Being canceled. Like I was agreed with me that O'Hare is an a OK airport before moving on to his question. Very brave of you, Henry. You're wrong. But I, I admire your courage, Henry, another brave man going into battle. Uh, my, my battle metaphors are done. Um, okay. Henry asks, how do you balance spending the points you have available now on trips versus waiting for the next three plus fire emoji alert from Thrifty Traveler?
You've mentioned in a previous episode that one of your predictions for this year is the elimination of fixed partner award options. Yes, we talked about that already today, Henry. Um, however, once those points are spent or at least transferred to a partner for a booking, they aren't. Exactly available to use on the next grade alert.
While US programs are generally free to cancel a lot of international programs, the majority of which have more and arguably better bank transfer partners than us, airlines have either cash or points fees to cancel. Kenry says. Personally, I feel that 200 to 300,000 transferrable points per person is the sweet spot.
What do you think? Everybody's different, right? So the right amount of points to sit on is going to vary a lot from person to person based largely on what your travel goals are and how many points you have. Most importantly, 200 to 300,000 may be the right number if you're. Traveling a lot. If you're doing two trips a year at most, that's too much.
Um, so I don't know that I have a good answer except for if you. Do have the ability to sit on 200 to 300,000 points or more for that next great deal. That to me says you also have the ability to earn even more points relatively quickly. And if that's the case and you're confident in that, then I would say that number should be.
As low as you're comfortable going, because you know, those 200 to 300,000 points are gonna get you way less far a year from now if you end up sitting on 'em that long. I would just come back to, you know, 2026, I think is the year where people need to be much more focused on the burning, uh, and doing that quickly, knowing that they can earn even more once that trip is over or even beforehand.
Yeah. Uh, I wish Henry, I had the forethought that you do. I don't have like a strategy about what I like to keep my, my, my points coffers at. I usually just see flight book flight and I, my points never last very long. It's also one of the curses of working for Thrifty Traveler Premium is I can talk myself into any.
'cause they're all good. Uh, so my points never stick around, you know, that like sweet spot number for me would be like in the 60 to 70,000 range if I can, you know? Uh, but you know, it takes a while to build those up and I'm not opening cards like crazy either. So, uh, but I, it's a really good question. I think, like Hal said, it'll depend on everybody's taste.
But if you have 200 to 300,000 transferrable points, I mean, you are golden. There's almost nothing you can't book round trip if you're sitting on that. So that's a really nice way to position yourself. Anything else for Henry? No. Uh, I don't really know that we helped him out, um, in part 'cause we, we can't, we don't know your personal situation Exactly.
We also don't have a crystal ball much as we think we have a good sense of how the rest of this year is gonna shape up. Yeah. I, I hope it was somewhat helpful. Yeah, no, I think you're, I think you're positioned really well, Henry, if that's what your stash is looking like. If you want us to answer your questions on the podcast or if you have feedback for us, hit us up at podcast@thriftytraveler.com and we might feature your question on next week's show.
We close as always, with on the spot, and it's Kyle's turn to put me on the spot. What do you have? So we're talking a lot about endangered species, maybe extinct deals, whether it's just much harder or actually impossible now, what's one flight that you wish you would have booked with points before it was too late?
Oh, wow. Um, I think, uh. In the, the JFK to Milan, Emirates flights, it's, it wasn't like a points deflation thing, it wasn't like a, um, a partner award problem. But now that the transfer. Um, the transfer ratios have gone down to Emirates. It's a little more expensive with points, and most importantly, that tax, the taxes and fees on those just shot up like almost tripled overnight.
And so now the proposition of flying round trip in Emirates business class is gonna cost me, you know, well over a hundred thousand. Points, round trip, if not more. And then, you know, close to a thousand dollars in taxes and fees. And what was, uh, a very kind of fun, exciting way to get to Milan is all of a sudden like just not that great of a deal.
Um, I don't wanna pay a thousand dollars in taxes and fees. I think that's the one that I still think about, like, man should have done that two years ago. That's a good one. Yeah. Important exception. If you can find the award space, which is very tough, whether you're looking through Emirates or another airline, you can book that same flight through Japan Airlines for 85,000 miles and think under $280 in taxes and fees.
That's right. I forgot that door kind of opened back up a perfect, a perfect example of why we say, don't give up on this. Look at us. We're being positive. What a way to end a pod. What a way to end it. Thank you all so much for listening to. Though to this bonus episode of the Thrifty Traveler Podcast, rate us five stars on your podcast platform of choice and like, and subscribe to the show on YouTube.
Uh, send this episode to someone you know who needs a vacation. If you have any feedback for us, send us a note at podcast@thriftytraveler.com. We'd love to hear from you there. Kyle, tell us about the team. This episode was produced by your favorite host who is at war with everything and everyone. Gunnar Olson.
It's, uh, produced and edited by Sylvia Thomas and edited by Kyle Thomas. Our theme music is by Benjamin Tissot. See you guys in a few days. See you next time.