Points and miles aren’t worth anything if you can’t use them. If you want to fly lie-flat business class (most of us, right?), it can be excruciating to find flights you can actually book with points. But some stand out as being much easier to book - if not downright easy. Gunnar and Kyle shine the spotlight on the airlines and routes where it’s easiest to score that business class seat using miles. Plus, they chat about rising surcharges on award tickets and look at why Gunnar is adding a new credit card to his wallet ASAP … from an airline he rarely flies.
Points and miles aren’t worth anything if you can’t use them. If you want to fly lie-flat business class (most of us, right?), it can be excruciating to find flights you can actually book with points. But some stand out as being much easier to book - if not downright easy. Gunnar and Kyle shine the spotlight on the airlines and routes where it’s easiest to score that business class seat using miles. Plus, they chat about rising surcharges on award tickets and look at why Gunnar is adding a new credit card to his wallet ASAP … from an airline he rarely flies.
00:00 - Finding something out: The best bits from our interview with Jason
02:15 - Kyle issues a correction to his bougiest travel take: SkyMiles + Champagne
04:00 - Something Hot: This American Airlines 80K-mile card sign-up bonus
09:00 - Something Cold: The Taxes & Fees are Too Damn High – which airlines are worst? (Ahem: Emirates…)
15:12 - A word from our sponsor: Us … and how you can find business class availability with Thrifty Traveler Premium
16:40 - The Extra Mile: All of the easiest business class seats to book with points and miles
20:30 - Why Finnair might be the best of them all (and one of the fanciest) and with easy-to-earn Avios
23:20 - The other easiest-to-book options when flying lie-flat to Europe
34:40 - The key to book Qatar Airways QSuites
40:30 - Listener Question: How to pair award tickets with cash bookings on a group trip
44:45 - On the Spot: Gunnar’s dream additions to the “easiest-to-book biz class” list
Produced by Gunnar Olson & Erica Kamrowski
Edited by David Strutt
Show music: “All That” by Benjamin Tissot
Yo. Welcome to the show. I'm Gunnar Olson here with the newest cruising convert, the latest Disney defector. It's Thrifty Traveler executive editor, Kyle Potter. Kyle, did our, episode with Jason last week convince you that cruising or Disney are worthwhile travel pursuits for you?
Is Jason listening to this? I don't know if Jason's listening. I would say he's come as close as anybody to to make me feel like, you know what? This is worth a try. I I'm not there yet, but he did make a compelling case for both, especially the, ride cocktail, ride cocktail, ride cocktail setup at Disney.
That does seem like a winning formula. Yeah. I think he's he's a pretty good spokesperson for both of those things. Alright. So we we I wanna talk a little bit about last week's episode because it was so fun.
We had a really good time listening to it. If you haven't heard it, check it out after this episode. But our episode last week, episode 21 with Jason Matheson of Fox nine's The Jason Show on on Fox stations all over the country and his, daily radio program here in the Twin Cities as well, was so funny. He's he's a really great traveler to talk to our audience as well. But what were some of the, the Jason isms, if you will, that came out of that that you liked the most?
I mean, I will never forget him using his hands to convey struggling to come up with, what do you call it, a a child, your new child. Really got me. That one's gonna stick with me forever as well as calling children feral. Yeah. That was a good one.
All the things you talked about with kids, I like kids on a case by case basis was one of his lines that I really that really stuck with me. That was really nice. I also thought, him calling out Delta for twisting their mustache at the sight of him searching for Mercedes interiors when we were talking about AI and flight pricing. That was very funny. And then finally, when he announced that celebrity changed me, but talking about the cruise line was, also a hilarious line.
I thought that was great. He immediately was like, that was a little dramatic, but that was a a great line. He dropped a lot of gems. Yeah. We we got some good pull quotes from that episode.
That's for sure. Yeah. Check out the, the supercut that we put together on the Instagram too of of our favorite Jason isms from it. One other piece of cleanup from last week's episode, Kyle. At the end, for on the spot, I asked you guys what your bougiest travel take was.
And you gave us a pretty good answer, but you immediately came up with a better one as soon as we stopped recording as far as gonna do this to me? You're doing me so dirty. You're doing me so dirty, Gunnar. We need to know. If you have a correction to issue for the record as a proper journalist as you are, well, let's let's hear it.
Alright. If we have to issue a correction, my my better bougie travel take is that, you know, when I go to the Delta Sky Club, I can't bring myself to drink the free sparkling wine anymore. I always pay some SkyMiles to buy a small bottle of champagne and, like, split it with my wife or by myself if I'm just, you know, in Gunnar's, two glasses of wine mode, which you've now made famous. Yeah. The the free stuff just doesn't cut it anymore.
That used to be the go to, and now it's just I can't I can't choke it down. Man, you used to be a man of the people, and look at you now. I mean, I'm still using SkyMiles to to drink for free. So what more do you want from me? That's true.
That is a good one, though. That's a really good, a good SkyMaa or a good SkyClub hack there as well. Alright. Today on the show, we're gonna look at one of the best credit card welcome offers of the year, and we're gonna chat about the unrelenting rise of points and miles booking surcharges. And then in our extra mile topic, we're gonna hit the easy button.
We're gonna reveal all of the easiest to book business class seats using points and miles that are out there. All that and more. Welcome back to the Thrifty Traveler podcast. Alright. Let's jump into something hot and something cold where we look at the good and the bad news out there for travelers from the past week, and we'll start as always with something hot.
So even if you're not an American Airlines flyer, you should be earning AA miles. I think we could agree on that. With the possible exception of Alaska, I think they're the most valuable miles you can earn among The US airlines. And for a limited time, you can earn 80,000 of them when you sign up for the Citi AA platinum select world elite Mastercard. Wow.
Is that name a mouthful? Let's add a couple more, adjectives to that, please. I honestly I don't know if I ever said that full title out loud until just now. The Citi American Airlines platinum select world elite Mastercard. Wow.
Alright. If you're approved for the card and you spend $3,500 in the first four months, you can earn the 80,000 bonus. It has an annual fee of $99 a year, but that's waived in year one, so you don't have to pay that the first year. Of course, credit cards are serious business. Don't sign up for a card that you can't afford.
Don't spend money on a card that you can't pay down to zero every month. This card is a no brainer for me. I will be signing up for this card. But for those out there who aren't convinced, what are some of the best ways you could see to use 80,000 AA miles? I mean, let's just circle back first to the point you made before because I think is the hardest hurdle for people is, well, I fly Delta or I fly United, so why in the world would I want an American Airlines credit card?
And the answer is that American Airlines miles, in particular, are so much more valuable for booking flights on other airlines, not just American. So I would say, you know, the ability to book Americans' one world network of partner airlines, that's what makes them so valuable. And the fact that American, unlike both Delta and United, both air it still has an award chart, which sets the price in stone to book, you know, flights all around the world on truly five star airlines for a fraction of what either Delta or United would charge you to book something similar. So, you know, booking Japan Airlines business class for 60,000 miles each way from anywhere in The United States, whether you fly non nonstop from Seattle or JFK or Dallas or connect from your home airport and connect through one of the the many US and Canadian hubs that Japan Airlines flies to, that's a great deal. If you can find the award space flying Japan Airlines first class, which to this day is, like, one of the coolest, best experiences I've ever had at 35,000 feet, Flying that for 80,000 miles each way to be able to book that with a single credit card bonus from this card is is really phenomenal.
Booking Qatar Airways, you know, if you're trying to fly from The United States to The Middle East or vice versa, pretty tough to be able to actually book that with American Airlines miles. But anything that doesn't touch US soil or North American soil, really easy to book for phenomenally cheap rates using American Airlines miles. I mean, I could spend this entire podcast talking about why I love American Airlines miles so much despite the fact that I really don't like flying them. Yeah. I I think, also, if you're if you're a traveler who's not looking for the front cabin, AA is really good at very consistently pricing their awards even up until the last minute, where, you know, in some cases, you could fly round trip to, you know, Florida or The Caribbean for 10,000 a miles round trip or, you know, up to, like, 16 or 20,000 round trip all the way down to Costa Rica.
They have a really, really big network in The Caribbean. So if there's an island that you need to get to and you're having trouble finding something that's affordable, a miles can get you there as well. So I I I use my a miles to fly in and around the country all the time. And like I've mentioned briefly, they keep their prey their flight prices cheap up until the last minute with those points sometimes. So you can find one ways within a week of travel for 7,000, 8,000 points each way.
Great offer if, if you can get your hands on this card. Anything else about the AA card? You know, the last one that comes to mind is, really consistent round trip award rates to Europe for, like, 35 ish thousand round trip in economy, which, you know, the the great part about that is, you know, we talk all the time on the show about how great Delta SkyMiles flash sales can be and that they can be even cheaper than that. But when you're using Delta SkyMiles, that's almost always gonna be a basic ticket. So you can't pick your seat.
You can't cancel for free and get those miles back. But American Airlines, as we're talking right now, still does not sell basic economy award tickets, which means for 34, 35, 38,000 advantage miles round trip. You can book a main cabin ticket with American, which, you know, the point that you've made again and again on the show is that if you're trying to piece a trip together and you you see something you kinda like, book it now. This is that perfect book it now and buy some time until something else might come up later or earn some points in a different program in order to fly, lie flat if you want to. But even if you don't, I mean, that's a pretty phenomenal deal to do it for, you know, 35 ish thousand, advantage miles round trip.
Alright. We need to, unfortunately, pivot to something cold, and that is a story that I wrote, last week called the taxes and fees are too damn high. This is a a reference to Jimmy McMillan, the New York politician who founded a political party called the rent is too damn high party. A very, very good video. You go back and look that one up.
My story and I it was actually pointed out by our award analyst, Peter Thornton, but my story showed several cases in which the taxes and fees surcharges that are attached to many of these points and miles redemptions that we love are getting crazy expensive. And, obviously, in business class, it's the worst. We've long known about British Airways and Virgin. The airlines that have to deal with the taxes in The UK have always had high taxes and fees, high surcharges on their fares. Virgin lately has been kinda yo yoing back and forth, and now they're back up around a thousand dollars round trip in the front cabin, which is really, really high even if you're getting a good rate on some points and miles.
But sneakily and slowly, Air France KLM flying blue has also jacked up their surcharges $700 over $700 round trip in the front cabin right now, over the we just caught this over the last couple of weeks. And then, you know, we pointed out other offenders like Etihad, who is known for really high surcharges on its best seats as well as, kind of under the radar ones like Icelandair and Aer Lingus where in their economy cabins, you can see surcharges of upwards of $400 round trip. And in most cases, in in many cases, you can actually book those in cash for $304,100 dollars. So you might as well not just fork over. Yeah.
So blow, you know, thirty, forty thousand points and more money in cash than you would just to book the flight outright. Yeah. So all all those are, you know, kind of, airlines that we've known about. But right after I published the story, one of our favorite carriers said, hold my beer. Whose beer are you holding right now, Kyle?
Unfortunately, I'm I'm holding Emirates beer because yeah. I mean, it was less than an hour after we hit publish on that story. Emirates you know, to this point, they've made a lot of changes to their redemption rates and also the taxes and fees to the point where, you know, flying from The United States to Dubai, you get hit with close to $900 in a one in one way surcharges if you're booking a business or first class ticket. And that just dilutes the value of the points you're using when, you know, ostensibly, the purpose of earning all of these points is to travel for as close to free as possible, and that just keeps getting harder and harder. But what American did is after leaving its really cool fifth freedom routes, from The US to Europe, namely from JFK to Milan as well as Newark to Athens, after leaving those pretty much untouched for a long time, they really went after business and economy awards with, you know, substantially higher surcharges, which just really stinks.
So, you know, you used to be able to book a a one way business class ticket, from either JFK or Newark to Milan or Athens for 87,000 Emirates miles and somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 to a $150 in taxes and fees each way. And now that is north of $400 each way, which just really stinks. And at the same time, the cost of, you know, one of which we've talked about repeatedly. One of the best ways to book an economy ticket to Europe on these Emirates routes for 17,500 miles each way and, you know, under a $100 in taxes and fees, those more than doubled overnight without a word of warning. So this is the part of award travel that tends to get lost in the conversation because people are so hyper focused on finding the lowest, you know, award rates as possible.
And when airlines increase those, it's headline news and sites like ours. All the while, this has been a pretty stealth and consistent devaluation among some of the best airline programs where, you know, the cash cost that you have to pay in addition to however many tens of thousands of miles you're forking over keeps going up and up and up without the same kind of attention. This is the part that makes me really feel for people out there. Like, if you're saving up for one of these flights, you're saving up the points and miles. If you're not someone who's churning cards and earning tons and tons of points on sign up bonuses, you're, like, putting spend on cards to earn points enough so that you could fly Emirates business class over to Europe.
And then, you know, two days before you're ready to book the taxes and fees, surcharges just double overnight. And I'm I I feel for people out there. This part is really annoying. There's so much to consider and think about when you're playing this game and doing points and miles. And the part that I really don't wanna have to think about is what is that cash total gonna be when I get there.
But now it's you know, that's, that might be just a bridge too far for some people. And I know especially, like, these Air France surcharges, that round trip, 7 over $700 round trip, that's a bridge too far for me. I I can't I'm not booking that flight anymore. I gotta find other options. And, I think especially when it's around a thousand dollars round trip, that that really stinks.
And when it's close to a thousand dollars one way, like, remember, it's over to to UAE. That's really tough as well. Right. Well, and so much of of what we talk about, in terms of getting the most out of your miles is figuring out the right combination of a booking. So using miles from airline program a to book airline program b at the lowest rate as possible.
And increasingly, part of the math of that needs to be now which airline program that I book with flying which airline is going to charge me the fewest amount of taxes and fees as well because, you know, to your point, if it's a question of paying 60,000 miles and $700 in taxes and fees versus paying seventy, eighty thousand miles and $5.60 in taxes and fees, that's a pretty good trade off. But it just adds another layer of complexity into figuring out kind of what the sweet spot is in order to book something, not just for the fewest amount of miles as possible, but just for the lowest amount total, folding that all into one. Yeah. That's tough. We always seem to end this segment on bad news, and that's the, the gist of something hot and something cold.
So I guess we'll be right back. We're not sorry about it. If you want flight deals and especially if you want business class deals bookable with your points and miles, you need Thrifty Traveler Premium. 247365, our team is sending out the cheapest flights and the hardest to book and sometimes easier to book business class deals bookable with points. Gunnar, the deals just keep coming.
What do you see lately? Yeah. One that really caught my eye or two that really caught my eye in the last, couple days here, Switzerland, Swiss business class, from 48,000 points each way. This includes the new Swiss Senses, the beautifully named new business class product that they have flying across the Atlantic. If you wanna go to Zurich or beyond, they have great connections throughout Europe as well.
Swiss is one of my favorite business class flights of my life. And this other one is Hawaiian Airlines first class from Seattle to Hawaii. They added a bunch of capacity on that brand new beautiful, seven eighty seven, with the lie flat seats flying Hawaiian. You can book those from 40,000 Hawaiian or Alaska miles each way, nonstop to Honolulu. Pretty great deal.
If you want deals like that and many more, sign up today at thriftytraveler.com/premium. As a special treat, our podcast listeners can use the promo code t t pod for $20 off your first year of flight deal alerts. That's thriftytraveler.com/premium. Enter the promo code t t pod, five letters, all one word, for $20 off your first year. Alright.
Back to the show. Alright. It's time for the extra mile where we dig a little deeper into a travel topic from the past week. And this week, we wanted to highlight some good news, I guess, in points and miles redemptions. We wanna talk about some of the easiest business class flights to book using your points and miles.
Using points and miles to fly up front has always been one of our favorite things here at Thrifty Traveler. For many of us, a lie flat seat isn't something that we can pay 3,000 to $8,000 for. It's just not in the cards for a lot of us, a lot of us travelers out there. So finding that award availability where the points and miles flights are actually bookable is sometimes painstaking depending on the airline. So that's why we wanted to round up some of these kinda easier to find lie flat seats you should target if you wanna use your points and miles to book.
So, Kyle, are we gonna get a rash of emails to, podcast@thriftytraveler.com accusing us of being out of touch again? Why are we focusing on business class here? You mean we're not going to after you outed me for being too bougie for the free stuff at the Delta Sky Club? I think that those emails are coming anyway. Yeah.
They always are. Look. We don't need I don't need you to tell me about how out of touch and how arrogant I am anymore. Right? I heard it.
I got the first email. No. I think the point of this episode is is a couple of things. I I think, first of all, the idea that this is possible just seems out of reach, the the concept of flying a lie flat business class somewhere overseas. And, look, it is not for everyone, and we do our best.
And I think we do a good job, and we'll do a better job in episode 23 of branching out beyond business class. But I think the point is to put this on people's radar that this can be done and that it doesn't have to cost you it's certainly not 5 to $8,000, but also it doesn't have to cost you a significant amount of additional points beyond what you would pay for economy. And so finding the right ways to book these life flat seats in an economical way with the points that you have, that is the name of the game. But too much of the conversation about booking award travel and flying fancy business and first class seats is focused on really sexy redemptions, that cost $1,020,000 dollars each way without telling you that, oh, by the way, you know, booking that a and a first class ticket from Chicago to Tokyo is pretty much impossible because the availability just isn't there. So what we're trying to do is trying to broaden this conversation and really focus on, you know, what we know, which is award availability and and focus in on a handful of examples here, where, you know, we didn't say easy.
We said easiest. So these are the ones where, you know, based upon our hours upon hours, day after day of searching for award flights that we know that award availability is reliable and that it can be done without, you know, driving yourself insane trying to book this stuff. Yeah. And I just wanna point out that at Thrifty Traveler and Thrifty Traveler Premium, we we almost exclusively search for availability with two passengers or more. Yeah.
We're we, you know, we know it's a lot it's easier, I guess, to find some of these harder to book, flights if you're just gonna search for one passenger. We also know that that's not what most travelers are trying to do with their points and miles. Most people are trying to go someplace with somebody. And if there are two seats available, there's also one seat available. So you can also get those there.
But that's also what we're talking about here is, you know, we're always looking for two plus passengers in the cabin, to make these bookings a little more user friendly. Anything, come to mind right away as far as some of the easier to book business class seats? You know, I think maybe the single easiest one that has emerged over the last year and change is a little unconventional. Not a ton of people are thinking about starting their trip to Europe in Helsinki, but it can be well worth it because Finnair might just be the single easiest business class cabin to book, period. You can book it, for as low as 62,500 Avios each way, sometimes even less if you time it right with a transfer bonus from one of the major banks, like Chase or American Express.
And, critically, while not a lot of these programs have Finnair as a direct transfer partner, once you send your points to an airline that uses Avios, like British Airways, Iberia, or Qatar, you can kick them over to Finnair and book at these low rates nationwide for as low as, like I said, 62,500. The trick here is, you know, you made the point about making sure that, you know, we're sending out deals and we're searching for two plus passengers. Finnair does something a little goofy that you have to be aware of. If you just go to Finnair site and you search for, you know, two one way tickets in business class from Chicago or JFK or Boston to Helsinki, That search is gonna come up empty. But if you go into the upper right hand of the website and change your location from The United States to somewhere in Europe and run that search again and just let's get this out of the way.
This is completely legal. There's nothing wrong with doing this. You're just telling your browser you're in a different country at the time. If you do that and you run that exact same search, that exact same search is going to show up as, yes, there are two seats available. You can book for a grand total of a 125,000 Avios for two passengers.
It's one of the most reliable ways to cross the Atlantic Ocean in a very fancy business class seat. We'll link it in our show notes, but our coworker John flew this last year and really, really loved it. This is going to be probably my first stop to check to see the next time I wanna lie flat seat overseas. Thin Air is maybe the most reliable thing on this entire list. Yeah.
I booked this one. Did the trick, switched my location to Finland, found two seats, and, my wife and I are are heading to, Rovaniemi, to take our daughter to go go meet Santa Claus for her first Christmas this year. Can you spell that for me? R o v a n I e m I. Alright.
Maybe we could tie issue a correction. I'm not spell checking you in real time. Okay. Finnair is a really good option. They have great connections throughout Scandinavia and kinda what we describe as just, like, Northern Europe.
It's obviously a beautiful looking business class seat too. I'm really excited to give it a try. Like you said, John flew it, loved it, and he gushes about it. So can't wait to see what's going on there. When it comes to Europe, anything else jump out at you as as seats that are easy to book?
You know, another really, really easy one is, Singapore Airlines. And, no, I'm not telling you. Forget about Europe. Let's go to Singapore instead. Like Emirates, Singapore also has a fifth freedom route, which is just a flight between two, airports that aren't none of neither of which are kind of in their home country or their hub.
So in this case, Singapore still operates a flight from New York City JFK to Frankfurt, and that one is also wide open. So being able to, to book that, not just through, Singapore, you know, you can transfer points from Chase, American Express, Capital One, run all the way through the list to Singapore and book that for 81,000 points each way. But you can also transfer, you know, many of those same points to Aeroplan and book that flight for just 60,000 points each way. So having that kind of really reliable availability, I you know, the the peak summer is an exception. And once you get really close in, you know, thirty to sixty days can be a little bit tougher.
But other than that, this is a really, really easy one to book book if you're looking for a lie flat seed. And, you know, this will this will hold true across basically every example that we're talking about here. But I just wanna make the point that is 60,000 points more than you would pay for economy. It sure is. It's about twice as many points as you would pay for an economy seat on that exact same route.
But the cash cost difference of that flight is much more than double. It's quadruple. It's quintuple. It's maybe even more than that. So this is this is where you start to find those sweet spots of how you can book a a business class seat overseas on a long haul flight for a fraction of what you might expect.
Yeah. That's a really good one too. That's a funky little fifth freedom route between JFK and Germany there. Okay. Tell me about, Aer Lingus because this is maybe the coolest one.
Not only easy to book, but there's a great little quirk here that could save you some points too. There's a there's a couple of weird quirks with Aer Lingus. It is a goofy little airline that operates with a bunch of partnerships that you can take advantage of. The best one I mean, first of all, let's just say, Aer Lingus award availability is typically pretty excellent. It varies from hub to hub, and it comes in waves.
So, for example, you know, we've seen really wide open award space in in business class flying from Minneapolis to Dublin for months at a time, and then, you know, all of that gets booked up, and then it disappears. But we've come to rely on those waves of award availability to the point where if you're flexible both in terms of the date that you travel and which city you travel to or from, you can pretty easily make this work. Now the reason why Alaska is such a valuable partner here is is that on paper, Alaska will charge you 55,000 miles for a business class ticket each way. But if you add a connection on either end of the Atlantic, so if you fly from, let's just say, Fargo to Chicago and then onward to Dublin, in economy from Fargo to Chicago or on the other side, from, Chicago to Dublin to London or Paris and you pick that final segment in economy, it drops the total to 45,000 miles each way, which makes it easily one of the cheapest business class award tickets over to Europe that you can book, period. Yeah.
It's pretty amazing to, add another segment and to lower your price is always something that we love to see. And that's also you know, especially flying Aer Lingus through Dublin, those are quick easy flights, obviously. And, it's just a good way, a a simple way to connect, and it's usually a pretty convenient connection. Although I've never flown Aer Lingus myself, I do not know what the connection is like in Dublin. Have you done it?
It depends. I mean, the the real upside for me on the way home is that there's preclearance in the in the Dublin Airport, which means that instead of, you know, getting off the plane after your seven to nine hour flight back home from Dublin and having to go through customs and immigration, you do all of that in Dublin. And then you just land immigration, you do all of that in Dublin. And then you just land at a normal domestic gate, and you walk to your Uber or to, you know, whichever loved one you've coaxed into picking you up from the airport, and you're on your way. So it makes it really, really slick.
Yeah. That's a pretty good one. Tell me about Iberia because this is maybe changing before our eyes, I think. Yeah. Iberia is an interesting one.
So, you know, Spain's main flag carrier, they operate, you know, a handful of, of routes to and from The United States over to Madrid and back. This is one that, you know, had we recorded this podcast, a couple of months ago, probably would have been a lot higher. So I will say that this one is maybe getting a little bit harder. But if you book in particular from East Coast cities like Boston, JFK, Washington, DC, Dulles, as well as Otley, Chicago. You can book a one way for as few as 40,005 hun 40,500 rolls right off the tongue, Avios each way in the off peak season.
So excluding the peak summer, excluding the winter holidays, there's also typically a stretch of April that gets lumped into peak pricing, which ends up pricing a little bit higher at, 59,000 Avios each way. But, again, those Avios are so easy to earn because you can transfer them from all of the big points programs, American Express, Chase, Capital One, etcetera, either directly to Iberia or to British Airways and then kick them over to Iberia or just book with British Airways at the exact same rates. Now the wrinkle here is that I would say availability is a little bit harder to find than it than it had been, you know, just probably three, four, five, six months ago. But that said, you know, I think as long as you're booking eight to ten months or more in advance, you can pretty reliably find two seats, which is not the case definitely for many of the major US airline programs. Yeah.
For sure. It it that like you said, it was definitely kinda number one with a bullet. This is maybe the easiest business class to book even just a few months ago. I'd always recommend people take a look, especially because those rates, those rates are so low. They were even lower, and a lot of people were will pay more in economy just to fly one way.
And I said, just take a look at Iberia. Give it a scan before you head over there. It's a little less likely now, but we're still finding, you know, relatively good, award space for booking Iberia business class flights. Booked that single aisle a three twenty one Neo. That was an awesome business class flight I took.
I I really loved that airplane, and that was, one of my favorite flights. Yeah. You know, I've flown Iberia business class a handful of times over the years, and I don't think it gets enough credit for just how solid it is. After a while and this if you want a bougie travel tank, you're about to get it. After a while, a lot of the Transatlantic business class experiences kinda blend together because they're all kind of doing the same thing.
You know, if you're flying from The States over to Europe, they're trying to get you fed and put to bed as soon as possible. A lot of them use the same seat manufacturer. So while the finishes might look a little bit different, they're all roughly the same give or take. And I just I have always really enjoyed my experiences flying Iberia. So, you know, we we saw a devaluation from Iberia earlier this year.
This used to be as low as 34,000 Avios each way, which is was easily, you know, one of the cheapest and also most reliable business class redemptions. Now that's up to just over 40,000 miles each way, if not more, during those peak periods or from longer flights from Dallas or Miami or the West Coast. But still, this is a really good deal. It's one worth looking out for, especially if you're trying to do something in Spain, whether it's, you know, spending time in Madrid, which I wholeheartedly endorse, or heading out to Barcelona or wherever. This is a really, really good place to start, but just start looking for it.
Look early. And then if you can't find what you like, move on to one of the other options on the list. Yeah. Great advice. One more I'd add for Europe is, Swiss, which we mentioned in our ad about thrift traveler premium.
Swiss business class flights aren't terribly hard to find. They do a good job of releasing their seats, especially in the last, you know, couple weeks, if not a month or two before travel. If they're not selling the seats, they're they're not very they're not stingy about holding them close to the vest and waiting for that business traveler to come gobble them up. They'll they'll release them to the partners. I've had, you know, success within two, three weeks of travel of finding some Swiss award availability for the same exact rates that you'd book it, you know, twelve months out.
So or eleven months out. 55,000 life miles to book those or between sixty and seventy thousand, Air Canada Aeroplan miles. 88,000 if you wanna book them with United miles, which you can do with some connections too. So I like flying Swiss, some of my favorite flights ever with that airline. I wanna make a note about British Airways because some people are probably screaming into their steering wheels right now that I find British Airways business class availability all the time.
There's a big catch, though. Right? There's steering wheels on the right side of the car because they're all in England. All all 10 of our British listeners are screaming into their steering wheels. Yeah.
There there is a big catch, but there is a solution. You know, if you wanna talk about offenders of egregious, taxes and fees when you're redeeming your miles, flying business class, it doesn't get a whole lot worse than British Airways. It has gotten a little bit better over the course of the last few years, but still, I mean, you're talking about paying 750, a thousand, even more round trip on a business class ticket on top of all of those miles that you're using. Now the trick here is that, you know, like Gunnar said, it is pretty easy to find these seats. There's probably not a single airline on the planet that is more generous with business and first class award space than British Airways, but you don't wanna book those seats with British Airways miles.
At least not from The US to London because British Airways will typically charge you 80,000 Avios for a business class ticket and $375. That's a Chicago to London Heathrow example. And it's pretty similar across the network, maybe a little bit more on the mileage front. You can also use fewer miles, but then the taxes and fees start to go up because British Airways has this kind of sliding scale where you can choose what kind of mileage you wanna use and that, therefore, what kind of taxes and fees you'll end up paying. So the fewer miles you use, the more taxes and fees you're gonna end up paying.
But the trick here is to instead use Cathay Pacific Asia miles, which you can transfer from American Express, Capital One, BILT, and a handful of others. And that's because from coast to coast, for a one for a nonstop from United States to London, Cathay charges 63,000 miles and just $223. So not only are they charging you fewer miles, but also a much more palatable amount of taxes and fees. On the return from London, it gets really nasty. I wouldn't recommend this workaround if you're trying to get home from London.
But trying to get there, it's a it's a safe bet. Yeah. It's always it's always nasty trying to get home from London. I just recommend just position yourself out of there if you can. Just book the cheapest flight you can to Dublin and then get home from there.
Exactly. There are smarter ways to do it. Okay. Kyle, I want to talk about Qatar Airways. QSuites, best business class in the world?
Certainly up there. What do you think? I'm asking for a take. Yes. Probably.
Okay. It's it's really close. I mean, I think Qatar Airways is certainly still in the conversation. I would say A and A, from Japan is up there. You will not hear A and A business nor first class on this list.
It is impossible to book. So so that's their Japan Airlines, I would put in that conversation as well. Yeah. Okay. So very quickly, just a little bit of seat love.
Why? Why is it so good? Why why is the QSuite worth searching for? It it is it is still one of, if not the most private yet spacious business class seats that you can book. I mean, it's not just a suite door for the sake of saying business class suites.
The the suite the doors are much higher than you'll find on most other airlines. The seat is really, really well designed. The service can definitely be hit or miss. You know, we've had some flights with Qatar Airways where everybody is phenomenal and warm and attentive. And then we've had, you know, on the very next segment, you know, the flight attendants will disappear for many, many hours at a time.
So, you know, you take the bad with the good. On the whole, though, it it's a really tough one to beat. And so I'm I'm glad we're including it on this list even though I certainly don't wanna suggest that it's easy to book because it's definitely not easy to book. It is, however, easier to book if you listen to what we're about to tell you. Yeah.
So I wanna book it. You've convinced me. When would you start looking for q suites, to be able to book it with points and miles? You should start looking right now. Like, let's end the podcast and you fire up a search for August 2026 because that's what you need to do.
If you want any hope of booking a flight from The United States to Doha or onward or vice versa back to United States, you need to be looking 11 out. Because if you don't do that, this is the epitome of the early bird gets the worm. Yeah. It's good. It's it's good advice.
We we know when we send q suites deals, it's always for a a segment of time where it's barely on my radar yet. You know? I'm always like, wow. July, August 26 availability. Like, that is a long way from now.
But, yeah, especially if you wanna book kind of the peak season in, you know, The Middle East and in The Maldives and in the Southern Hemisphere where a lot of Qatar's connections will take you. If you wanna book those, like, kinda January, February months, you better be right on it because, those seats go fast. They go really fast. Everyone's hunting at the same time for those same seats. So, make sure you search from several different Qatar gateways and as far out as you possibly can.
Those points need to be in your account at at a year's notice. Yeah. And and you need to have the right points because, you know, for many, many years, we talked to people about just how valuable American Advantage miles are, and they still are. But they are, you know, if you again, if you're trying to fly Qatar Airways between The US and The Middle East, those advantage miles are pretty much worthless these days because American just does not see any of the availability whatsoever to book those flights. So you need to have those transferable credit card points from banks like American Express, from Chase, Capital One, etcetera, to be able to send those over to Qatar or British Airways, hopefully, with a bonus so that you can book for as low as 70,000 miles each way.
Qatar, also part of this trend that we talked about before about raising, award taxes and fees. They've doubled within the last, year and a half or so, but still you're talking about 250 some dollars for a one way ticket, you know, from The United States to Doha or onward. A little bit more if you start to add a connection, but still that puts it on the reasonable end of all of the egregious offenders we lined out, in something cold. South America, the South American carrier, LatAm, we've seen pretty good availability with them. No?
Yeah. This is another one where, you know, kind of like, airline guess it tends to come in waves, but the waves are pretty steady. And, you know, LatAm's presence in The United States has grown a lot since, they partnered up with Delta just pre pandemic. So, you know, being able to again, you gotta turn back to Alaska miles if you wanna get the best deal, which, unfortunately, there's not a way to turn your credit card points anymore into Alaska miles if you listen to us before, that partnership ended with, Hawaiian and American Express through which you could could kick miles over to Alaska then, and you're sitting on a healthy stash of Alaska miles, this is the place to look if you're trying to get to South America, in particular, Lima, because that's the cheapest. 35,000 miles each way for a live flat business class seat as from as far as JFK, which is maybe the most impressive thing.
Because with all of these programs, generally speaking, the longer the flight, the more miles you're gonna pay. And that still is true with using Alaska miles to to book LatAm, but JFK to Lima is still a pretty darn long flight, and it applies all the way overnight. So you're really gonna want that live flatbed. So booking that for just 35,000 miles each way through Alaska is a is a really great deal. That one, you know, especially booking through Alaska, a little bit harder to find that comes in waves, but there's also flights from Miami and a couple others where 35,000 miles is still the rate you're gonna pay using Alaska.
Yeah. This is a really good list of, kind of the easier business class seats to look at. You know, if you're out there and you're frustrated that you can't get the value out of your points that you want, maybe target one of these. And even if it's not flying to the exact destination you want, if it gets you close, especially in Europe, if you can just get anywhere near Europe itself, you're gonna be able to find your way to your final destination for cheap. Let's help out a listener.
Steve from Michigan. Steve says, I'm a subscriber and fan of your show. As a Michigander who went to school in the Upper Peninsula, I keep waiting for the Minnesota to come out. It's this isn't the movie Fargo. We don't do that here.
No. Kyle, Kyle's too good of a journalist. He's got his nonregional diction. He's cut out all Minnesota accent from his life. And my accent is a disgusting amalgamation of various Midwestern locales.
This is a question. Weird listener question so far. Steve. Steve. Alright.
Steve asked, I'm looking at getting a graduation trip together for my twins graduating college next spring. He's looking at the East Coast to Asia. He says, this will be a trip with a small group. So I'm trying to find award availability for two, but also decent cash prices for the others to join. Any strategies there?
He said his ideal scenario is business class on the way over, economy on the way home. He wants, the other kids and families to see the value of points and miles and so that he can tell them to subscribe in the future. Good on you, Steve. Very smart. Get some people in the pipeline.
Yeah. Exactly. Steve, I don't know. Referral bonus to you, sir. Kyle, any advice for how to pair a kind of points and miles redemption with people who also wanna pay cash in a group trip?
I mean, if you're building in cash costs to to at least part of this trip, I think the key is looking from the West Coast and finding your way there because 99 times out of a 100, that's gonna save you some serious money on the long haul flight, you know, to be able to book, you know, a flight to Tokyo for, you know, in some cases as low as 450, $500 round trip instead of 900 or more. So I would start by looking there and then look into positioning flights. You know, the other thing that that I have not done myself because it's typically just my wife and I traveling that I have seen and heard a lot of families doing is splitting this up by day so that, you know, let's say you have a family of four. The dad and daughter fly out on one day. And then the following day when there's also a ward space, the mother and son fly out together.
So you're not separating your kids flying on their own for eleven plus hours across the Pacific Ocean. But it that just gives you a lot more flexibility and especially when you have this level of complexity in trying to put put together a trip and several different reservations. Flexibility is just the absolute crucial necessity in order to make this happen on a budget. What do you got? Yeah.
I think, you know, not being tied to being on the same aircraft at the same time or flying on the same day will definitely help you do this. We're actually doing when we go to Finland, my in laws are coming, and they're just flying on the exact same itinerary one day later, all at Finnair as well. So there weren't four seats available. We just decided to go two and two. We'll take a night in Helsinki and wait for them.
No problem. So if you can be a little bit flexible there, that's good. This is is not good advice for this particular instance because you said it's a family trip, Steve. So, presumably, you're fitting some or all of the bill for this. But on big group trips, one of my favorite tips is just be the one to book first.
Be the one to get the group trip out of the group chat. That way, everyone has to book around you. I'm almost always the most price sensitive traveler in my group trips, so I'm always saying, if everyone's kinda talking about dates, talking about ideas, I'll just book the flights that I want, that I can afford in the seat that I wanna book, and then I'll just send them to everybody, and then everyone else kinda fills in around me. Maybe that's selfish. People love to travel with you.
Yeah. All of my group trips are on hold this year anyway because I just had a kid. So, but, you know, it's that's my favorite advice is, you know, be the one to get it out of the the group chat, and, you could always cancel. You know? Book in a book a flexible award rate.
And that way, you're not on the hook for someone saying, you know, I booked the Friday to Sunday PM flights, and here's the $1,400 flight to Reno that I want you to book. And that's not that's not good travel, and I don't like following other people. Nobody wants that. Alright. If you want us to answer your question, email us at podcast@thriftytraveler.com, and your question might be featured in next week's show.
Alright, Kyle. You're on the spot. Yeah. Alright. So we talked about the easiest business class cabins to book with your points.
If I give you a magic wand and you got to pull something from the depths of wherever and pull it into the easiest to book category, what would you pick and why? Alright. Two pronged answer, because I can't decide. A and A, the room, business class to Japan, favorite flight of my life. It was not easy to book.
We had to wait till the last minute to do it, and then we jumped an old, economy award instead. But, man, that was just such an amazing flight. I had just the time of my life. My wife was sitting right next to me. She was a little bit sick, so she slept, like, thirteen of the hours on the flight, and she also said that was maybe the best flight of her life.
So, but, man, everything about that flight was excellent. It's just so hard to book, and the stress of waiting until the last two weeks to be able to snag that seat is, you know, sometimes not even worth it for some people. I just rather know what I'm doing, but I knew it was gonna be there. I kept hunting it down and and got it at the last minute. So I would love to be able to book that out ahead of time.
Man, it's so nice. I understand why it's not this maybe I, you know, maybe I'll just leave the scarcity there. You know? I don't One and done. Yeah.
Don't let everybody book it all at once. Maybe it becomes less special then. But also just, you know, if if Delta was bookable through partners, if Delta one was bookable through partners, even just every once in a while, I mean, it's so unreliable, and the SkyMiles rates are so nasty. Being a Delta hub captive, it sure would be nice to jump on a long haul from my home airport every once in a while, especially because all the other airlines that come in here keep leaving us in the end. Lufthansa, come on.
Come on back. Yeah. We're waiting. But, yeah, those are my guess two answers. Do you have one, or are you gonna skimp out?
Alright. Throw down the gauntlet on me. No. I think I think mine would be and this is because I had something booked last year and and ultimately had to cancel it. Japan Airlines' new business class suites that are flying currently from LA, Dallas, and, JFK over to Tokyo and back.
I I would just love nothing more than to to, first and foremost and most importantly, go back to Tokyo because why wouldn't I? But to be able to do that through some combination of flying the new business class suites there and the new first class back. And it's just so slim pickings on award space, especially booking through American Advantage that it just hasn't been possible to get something back on the books, but that would be my, my number one wish right now. Yeah. Both really, really good ones.
Alright. That's gonna be it. Thank you so much for listening to the Thrifty Traveler podcast. Please rate us five stars in your podcast platform of choice. Like and subscribe to us on YouTube as well.
The show is a lot of fun over there, and send this episode to someone you know who can't seem to use their points and miles to book business class flights. There are easier ways, folks. If you have feedback for us, send me a note, podcast at thrifty traveler dot com. We'd love to hear from you there. Kyle, tell us about the rest of the team.
Yeah. This episode was produced by Erica Kamrowski and your favorite host, the bane of his group tech's existence, Gunnar Olson. It was edited by David Strutt. Our theme music is by Benjamin Tissot. See you next week.
See you.