In the comments section of my post today about American offering United flyers status matches, FBKSan left (in part) the following comment:

I was surprised not to see more discussion of using miles, however. I get that the post is primarily about AA and its policies, but the ability to use miles is pretty central. I continue to be underwhelmed by the thought of what my AA miles could do. I realize *A availability has waned somewhat lately, but the sheer number of star partners still really appeals to me. Moreover, BA’s prominent position in OneWorld makes me gun-shy (those surcharges!) I’ve seen you and Gary comment positively about AA award availability and flight experiences, but their hard product in C is a real drag. I’ve come to really value the seat, especially when I’m flying a domestic carrier, so for me UA trumps AA.

For a long time I’ve considered United miles to be the most valuable mileage currency out there by far, given the liberal routing and stopover rules, reasonable award costs, and excellent partners. That being said, everyday the value of American miles is creeping up, in my opinion, while the value of United miles continues to slowly decrease.

Over the past few years we’ve seen the following happen with Star Alliance award availability for United flyers:

• Swiss has completely stopped releasing first class award space to/from the US more than 24 hours in advance
• Singapore has more or less stopped releasing award space in first and business class
• Lufthansa has stopped releasing first class award space more than a week or two before departure (this was the biggest blow, since they were the backbone of Star Alliance transatlantic first class award space)
• Air New Zealand has become even more stingy with releasing premium cabin award space out of North America
• ANA is hardly releasing first class award space anymore, even in the winter months when they previously were pretty generous

Of course these are all just trends. Meanwhile, using American miles, we’ve seen the following over the past couple of years:

• Cathay Pacific has continued to release more and more award space, often two first class award seats per flight
• American added Etihad as a partner, which has excellent award availability and a very nice first class suite
• After a long anti-trust agreement, American miles could once again be used for transatlantic travel on British Airways, though with very hefty fuel surcharges

But when you break it down by destination, American miles look more and more compelling (keep in mind I’m talking specifically about premium cabin award redemptions):

Asia — American

American miles are hands down more valuable than United miles for premium cabin redemptions to Asia. American releases plenty of first class award space on their own flights, as does Cathay Pacific and JAL. Meanwhile using United miles, only Asiana, Air China, and United release award space in first class between the US and Asia, none of which have nearly as much space as American or Cathay Pacific.

South America — American

Okay, this one’s not even close. American has one of the most extensive route networks to South America (they fly to at least a dozen places down there that I’ve never heard of), and they also partner with LAN, which has the most extensive route network in South America.

Australia — American

In the past Air New Zealand used to be a great way to get to Australia using United miles, but I’ve just about written them off because I don’t remember the last time I’ve seen a premium cabin award seat on them. Compare that to American, which partners with Qantas. While Qantas is stingy with award space, they do occasionally release space, and it’s even possible to redeem for Airbus 380 first class with them. Furthermore, American partners with Air Pacific, Air Tahiti Nui and Hawaiian, which also serve Australia/New Zealand.

Middle East — American

American partners with Etihad, El Al, and Royal Jordanian. Etihad is especially generous with releasing award space and they have a fully flat first and business class product, so you really can’t beat that for getting to the Middle East.

Europe — United

Believe it or not, I consider this one to be at only a slight margin. Why? Because the only first class product you can book between the US and Europe in advance is United first class. In the past you could redeem on Lufthansa and Swiss in advance, in which case I’d say United won by a long shot.

But with American you can also redeem for first class on their own flights with relative ease, with the added option of redeeming on British Airways with very high fuel surcharges. It’s not ideal, but at least you have the option of essentially paying a premium to fly a foreign carrier.

But United does still have the edge thanks to how many partners they have in Europe, including Austrian, LOT, Lufthansa, SAS, and TAP. The only issue is that for the most part they’re not very generous with releasing transatlantic award space. Still, it’s better than what American offers.

Africa — United

United partners with both South African Airways and Ethiopian Airways, so has a much more extensive route network to and around Africa.

But there are two major caveats I should emphasize. If you can wait till the last minute to book, United miles are very valuable, since Lufthansa, Swiss, and often even ANA do open up award space close to departure. Second, United does have very liberal routing rules which American doesn’t. So in many of the above instances if you’re willing to travel “the long way” you’ll have better luck with United than American. For example, with United you can travel to Australia via Asia, or to Asia via Europe.

But the average person doesn’t want to fly the long way and doesn’t want to wait till a few days before departure to finalize their trip. So which points currency is more valuable really comes down to your travel needs and flexibility. I think one thing is clear, though — the value of American miles has been on the rise over the past couple of years, in both absolute terms (thanks to their new partnerships) and relative terms (thanks to the decreasing value of miles with other programs).

What do you guys think?

A while back American promised they’d add the functionality to book partner award space on their website, and they’re slowly following through on that promise.

They already added the ability to search Alaska Airlines award space on aa.com several months ago, and now they added the ability to search and book British Airways and Hawaiian Airlines award space on aa.com as well.

This is awesome for a few reasons, including:

• It’s now possible to avoid the $25 American phone ticketing fee for reservations on these partner airlines
• American’s search tool (as I’ll explain below) is much easier to use than British Airways’ and Hawaiian’s
• American imposes hefty fuel surcharges for award travel on British Airways, so being able to know the total taxes and fees upfront is awesome

Let’s break it down by airline:

British Airways

British Airways has a downright awful award search tool, so I’ll be using American’s website first every chance I get. When you start your award search, just be sure that the box reading “AA + AAdvantage Participating Airlines” is checked, assuming you want to see award space for Alaska, British Airways, and Hawaiian.

On the next page you can search by preferred cabin, but the other cool option is that you can select your number of stops by selecting either “No Preference” or “Non-stop only.” For routes that are only served by British Airways and not American, you know all your results will be British Airways if you choose the “Non-stop only” option, so if you’re flexible with dates that may be the way to go.

And as you’ll see, award space on British Airways is very good (not as good as it used to be, but still very good). It’s interesting to note that while American imposes hefty fuel surcharges for travel on American, they’re not quite as bad as what British Airways charges directly. For example, taking the same flight from Newark to London, here are the costs when booking through American:

And here are the costs when booking through British Airways:

So as you can see, they are still a bit less. As a reminder, British Airways’ USA destinations include Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Houston, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, Orlando, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, Tampa, and Washington.

Hawaiian Airlines

I’ve always wanted to fly Hawaiian Airlines since they seem to be a cut above the competition when it comes to their service on routes to Hawaii, so being able to search their availability on aa.com is great as well.

The same trick above applies regarding searching for nonstop flights. For example, if you live in Portland and know you want to fly Hawaiian nonstop to Honolulu, just select “Non-stop only” in the dropdown menu.

And as you can see, the first option will be a Hawaiian Airlines option nonstop:

Hawaiian Airlines’ lower-48 destinations include Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Oakland, Phoenix, Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco, San Jose, Las Vegas, New York, Portland, and Seattle.

I’m also quite intrigued by how American is pricing some of these awards, like this one:

For this much:

Hmm….

Given that I spend all day booking award tickets, ExpertFlyer.com is one of the most useful websites for me. ExpertFlyer is a paid subscription service which costs $99.99 per year for the “premium” version, which is what I use, though they also have monthly plans available.

Ultimately just about all the information they display can be found publicly, though ExpertFlyer saves me time since it puts everything into one, easy to search place, from seatmaps, to flight availability, to fare rules, to award availability on select airlines.

But what I think makes ExpertFlyer worth it even for those that don’t spend hours a day searching for award availability is that they let you set up availability alerts for the following airlines:

Aegean Airlines, Aer Lingus, Aerflot, Aerolineas Argentinas, Air Canada, Air Europa, Air France, Air New Zealand, Air Tahiti Nui, Alaska Airlines, Alitalia, American Airlines, AVIANCA, British Midland, Brussels Airlines, China Airlines, China Eastern Airlines, China Southern Airlines, CSA Czech Airlines, Delta, El Al, Emirates, Etihad Airways, Finnair, Frontier Airlines, GOL, Hainan Airlines, Hawaiian Airlines, Iberia, Icelandair, KLM, Korean Air, LOT, Malaysian Airlines, Martinair, OpenSkies, Qantas Airways, Shanghai Airlines, Swiss, TAM, Tarom, Turkish Airlines, and United Airlines.

While you can set up availability alerts for revenue tickets (for example, if a flight is sold out and you want a seat on it, you could set an alert so that you would be emailed when space opens up), the most practical application for me is for award tickets. As a premium member I can set up 30 availability alerts at a time.

What does that mean? Say you want to fly Qantas first class to Australia in Decemer. Yes, that’s nearly impossible. What you could do is set up an alert for up to 30 individual flights whereby you specify the fare class, and if the space opens up ExpertFlyer will email you.

To set up an availability alert, log into your ExpertFlyer account and click on”Create New Flight Alert” towards the bottom of the sidebar.

The next page will give you a form you have to fill out in order to set up the alert.

I think for the most part it’s pretty self explanatory. Just enter an alert name (usually I’ll enter the origin and destination cities and date, like “Dec1LAXSYD”), the departing airport, the arriving airport, the date, the airline, and the flight number. The only part that’s potentially complicated is the “Class Code.” There you have to enter the right fare bucket. The good news is that they have a convenient chart with the fare classes for each type of fare.

In this instance I want Qantas first class award space, so after referencing the chart I see that it’s the “P” fare class I want, so I enter that.

Once you have that, the last thing you have to specify is how many seats you want to monitor for, and then click “Verify and Create.” If there are any issues (like the flight number not operating on that date) you’ll get an error message at that point. If space opens up you’ll receive an email, which is awesome.

So what are the most practical uses?

• If you book a business or first class award ticket, and one or two segments is only available in coach at the time of booking. You can set an alert for a higher cabin, and if the space opens up ExpertFlyer will let you know.
• If you’re currently booked on an itinerary with a connection but want a nonstop flight instead.
• If you’re shooting for an aspirational award and nothing is available, it can’t hurt to set up an alert to see if space opens up. You might just be surprised.

I wish, however, that ExpertFlyer would:

• Track more airlines than they display award availability for, like ANA, Asiana, Cathay Pacific, Lufthansa, etc.
• Allow you to set up more than one alert at a time. In other words, I’d love to be able to set an alert for first class award space on any nonstop American flight between San Francisco and Chicago for a certain date. At the very least I wish that after you submit the form it would save it if you want to set up a similar alert, because it can be cumbersome entering the information over and over.

Anyway, it’s a feature that I think a lot of people don’t know about but would get a lot of value out of, and more than justifies the annual fee for me. And in case there was any question, I’m not being compensated by ExpertFlyer for this post in any way. Hell, I don’t even know anyone at ExpertFlyer. I just happened to remember how awesome this is when availability opened up for a flight I was monitoring yesterday, and ExpertFlyer let me know.

British Airways structures their Avios award chart such that business class costs twice as many points as coach, while first class costs three times as many points as coach.

What’s frustrating about this is that they determine the cabin based on how the airline markets their product, and not whether it’s actually a two cabin or three cabin aircraft. This means that business class on American’s Flagship Service between New York and Los Angeles only costs double as many miles as coach, while first class on a two cabin aircraft costs triple as many miles. That’s despite the fact that business class on a three cabin aircraft is almost always better than first class on a two cabin product, and American charges the same mileage for both.

Even more confusing is that the same first class seat on the same 737 sometimes costs double points and sometimes costs triple points. American markets the forward cabin on international flights as “business class.” So if you fly Dallas to Toronto you pay double miles for “business” class, while if you fly Dallas to New York (on the same plane) you pay triple miles for the same seat. You’ve gotta love the logic…

But that’s not really the point of this post. As of a couple of weeks ago I’ve noticed a change on the British Airways website which is rather frustrating. At first I thought it was a glitch, but I’m starting to think they have an ulterior motive. As a default, the British Airways award search tool looks like this:

But as soon as you enter a route only served by domestic, two cabin aircraft, the drop down menu looks like this:

So what does this mean? You can’t book domestic first class American flights online anymore, at least for routes only operated by two cabin aircraft. That means you have to call to book an American Airlines domestic first class award, which incurs a $25 ticketing fee.

Why is this happening?

Trusting Lucky says: “Relax guys, it’s an IT glitch and the kind folks at British Airways will fix it in the next decade soon.”

Cynical Lucky says: “These phonies, this change didn’t occur as a result of inaction, but rather as a result of action, so someone schemed this. American domestic first class is readily available and people actually redeem Avios points for it, and it’s costing British Airways money. By not displaying first class award space online they’re convincing 90% of people that it’s not available, and the other 10% have to pay $25 to redeem for an award. No soup clotted cream and scones for you!”

What say you, wise friends?

Update: Iain points out that after you do the initial search (just select economy or business class), the next page will let you redo the search at the bottom left and specify first class. I’m still not convinced it’s a glitch, though.

While the British Midland takeover is quickly becoming an episode of Maury (“In the case of 47 year old British Midland, British Airways, you are NOT the father”), more details are emerging as to when British Midland will end their participation in Star Alliance. Last week I posted about British Midland’s announcement that they would begin the process of leaving the Star Alliance as of April 20, though we now have more firm dates.

First of all, today is the last day to use British Midland miles for travel on any Lufthansa group airline (which includes Austrian, Swiss, LOT, Brussels Airlines, etc.). Actually, if you’re reading this now it’s already too late. While their call center closes at 8PM BST, apparently hold times are over an hour, if you can even get through.

Anyway, according to a memo posted by Ghetto IFE, the customer benefit end date of British Midland’s participation in Star Alliance is May 31, 2012, so you should still be able to earn and redeem miles for travel on Star Alliance carriers that don’t belong to the Lufthansa group through then. Per my earlier post, I’m still trying to decide between redeeming those miles for travel on Singapore Airlines with fuel surcharges or on US Airways without fuel surcharges.

Please note: Offer is no longer available

As I posted about earlier today, Chase is pulling their current sign-up bonus offer on the Chase Ink Bold card tomorrow at 10AM ET, and it looks like the minimum spend requirement to earn the 50,000 points will go from $5,000 to $10,000, as is already the case on Chase’s own website.

I actually followed my own advice (shocker, I know!) and applied for the card. As a reminder, I had the Chase Ink Bold card from before they changed the benefits late last year. I find it funny that they won’t just let you “convert” the card to the new version, but instead have you apply for a new one, which “costs” them 50,000 points.

Not only did I apply for me, but I also had both of my parents apply. The result? Pretty soon we’ll be 150,000 Ultimate Rewards points richer.

Chase used to have awful customer service, but between the cards that get you a direct line to a human and the reconsideration line, I’m thinking they now have among the best.

Anyway, for all three applications we submitted we got the “pending decision” page. Within minutes we each called Chase’s business reconsideration line (800.453.9719), which is immediately answered by a (competent) human being. We were each asked basic questions about our business, like the nature of the business, income last year, expected income this year, number of employees, expected expenses vs. profit, etc. It was all pretty basic stuff, and we all got instantly approved on the call, none of which lasted more than five minutes. I was fully expecting to have to close my current Chase Ink Bold card (so I proactively transferred my points from the Chase Ink Bold card to my Chase Sapphire Preferred card), but that wasn’t even necessary. They let me keep both cards!

Seriously, I knew the process was easy, though it was even easier than I had remembered. Keep in mind you don’t need to have an incorporated business in order to get approved for a business credit card. You can just have a sole proprietorship and use your personal social security number as the tax ID.

So thanks, Chase, for the 150,000 Ultimate Rewards points. And thanks for having an awesome reconsideration line that takes the waiting out of the credit card approval process!

As I mentioned last week, Chase has adjusted the terms of the sign-up bonus for the Chase Ink Bold card on their website, whereby the minimum spend requirement to earn the 50,000 Ultimate Rewards points went from $5,000 in three months to $10,000 in three months, as seen below:

Affiliate links, like mine, continued to show the lower minimum spend requirement of $5,000. Unfortunately, though, I’ve just received word that our links will be deactivated at 10AM ET tomorrow.

If you’ve been thinking about getting the card, this would be a great time to do so. I doubt we’ll see the sign-up bonus go any higher than 50,000 Ultimate Rewards points in the near future, and Ultimate Rewards points are arguably the most valuable points currency out there. They can be transferred to United and Hyatt, as well as several other airline and hotel partners.

Just keep in mind this is a business card, which can actually work to your advantage, since Chase has no problem approving a personal and business card on the same day or in close succession (sometimes they don’t have a problem approving multiple personal applications either, but it seems to vary).

The card offers 5x points on business expenses (office supply stores, and on cellular phone, landline, internet, and cable TV services) and 2x points on gas and hotels. Furthermore, the card comes with no foreign transaction fees. So the card actually complements the Chase Sapphire Preferred card very nicely, which offers double points on dining and travel. Between the two cards you have bonus points covered for dining, travel, gas, and businesses expenses.

Lastly, it’s worth keeping in mind that Chase rebranded the Ink Bold card last November, changing up some of the benefits. As a result, if you applied before then you can actually apply for the card again and once again earn the bonus. I’ve actually been lazy and haven’t applied for the new Chase Ink Bold card yet (since I assume they might make me cancel my old card), as I still have the old one from before they switched it over. So I’m applying today as well.

(In the interest of full disclosure, I do earn a referral bonus for anyone that signs up through the above links. It’s the best available offer, and of course I’m very appreciate of your support, regardless of whether or not you use my links)

I love learning new things, especially about award bookings. Today’s lesson? There are no fuel surcharges for flights originating in Brazil due to government regulations. This is awesome, especially for those with British Airways Avios points or British Midland miles to burn before their partnership in Star Alliance ends. It’s even useful for those with American AAdvantage miles, given that they impose fuel surcharges for award redemptions on British Airways.

Anyway, the really cool news is that any award ticket originating in Brazil isn’t subject to fuel surcharges, even if it’s for an airline that usually imposes them.

For example, I priced a first class award ticket between Sao Paulo and London on British Airways:

The one-way cost is 90,000 Avios points plus only $36 in taxes (business class would be 60,000 Avios points while coach would be 30,000 Avios points):

And even a roundtrip award ticket from Sao Paulo to London wouldn’t be subject to the fuel surcharges. It’s worth noting, however, that a roundtrip award ticket from London to Sao Paulo would be subject to the fuel surcharges, since it’s based on the country of origination.

British Airways and Iberia both serve Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro in Brazil.

The results when pricing out an Iberia ticket are similar:

And the taxes for that would also only be $36:

I’m trying to burn some British Midland miles right now, and both Lufthansa and Swiss serve Brazil. Usually they’d have $300+ fuel surcharges per passenger for a longhaul premium cabin flight, though in looking at the business class fare on Lufthansa between Sao Paulo and Frankfurt, here’s the breakdown:

In other words, you’d only pay about $71.50 at most in taxes for booking this flight, instead of $400+ if it were originating elsewhere.

And business class award availability on Lufthansa and Swiss is actually pretty decent departing South America:

Keep in mind that British Midland only charges 37,500 miles (or 18,750 miles plus £127.50) for a one-way business class ticket from South America to Europe, which is a real bargain.

Now, how practical is all of this actually? Probably not very, at least for those based in North America with limited vacation time. It’s useful if you’re planning a circle trip and want to visit both South America and Europe on the same trip, since you can save a good chunk of cash thanks to the lack of fuel surcharges. At the same time, keep in mind that if you have a US passport you need a visa to visit Brazil. Fortunately I have a German passport, so that’s a non-issue for me.

It’s also worth keeping in mind that for those of you with a companion certificate from the British Airways Visa, it’s only valid for flights originating in the US, so it wouldn’t be useful in this instance.

So this is interesting, though I’m just trying to figure out a good way to capitalize on this, and I’m not coming up with anything especially good. I’d like to visit Rio de Janeiro, but I’m thinking there are more efficient ways to book a ticket down there that don’t involve a 5,000 mile detour. But then again, what’s the fun in that?

(Tip of the hat to Million Mile Secrets)

I realize I probably pay more attention to aircraft product types than most, so when I share these minor observations I assume I’m only speaking to about 1% of you. But that won’t stop me. A few days ago I shared possible signs of Thai Airways’ first Airbus 380 route, which will feature their brand new first class product.

The great news is that they’re actually reconfiguring several of their 747s with the new first class product as well, as discussed in Aircraft Interiors International and viewable below:

This will be a huge step up from the current first class product on the 747. As a refresher, Thai currently has two types of 747 configurations. One type is their more modern longhaul configuration, which I just flew from Bangkok to Hong Kong a few weeks ago. It’s a perfectly nice product, though nothing cutting edge. Then they have their ancient first class product, which they operate on select regional and longhaul flights. That being said, for the routes on which they fly the aircraft longhaul, they only market the first class product as business class, given how lackluster it is.

Anyway, it looks like Thai plans on launching the new configuration on TG920/921 between Bangkok and Frankfurt starting August 1, 2012.

The way you can tell is that the seatmap for the flight shows the new configuration, which only has nine seats:

The old configuration, on the other hand, has 10 seats:

Anyway, while the cabin type seems to be loaded into the system, keep in mind that the route and especially date the aircraft will be featured on are subject to change. But nonetheless if you have the choice between a couple of flights, you might as well go with the one which maximizes your chances of being on this aircraft.

Apparently the aircraft will start flying the Munich to Bangkok route as of the middle of August as well, once a few more planes are reconfigured.

Thai’s first class ground experience in Bangkok has always been spectacular, so it’s nice to see them stepping up their in-flight product as well!

Not to offend anyone, but I have a new favorite blog reader, and his name is Mac. He was the genius that pointed out the possibility of redeeming British Airways Avios points for travel on Aer Lingus in order to avoid fuel surcharges. Mysteriously Aer Lingus opened up business class award space on just about every flight the following day, and I’m still not sure whether that was a glitch or not.

Well, today Mac brings us another excellent observation on the “Ask Lucky” page of the blog, which I’ll break down here. Though in the meantime I think I owe Mac a steak dinner, and should really rename the “Ask Lucky” page to “Words of Wisdom from Mac” page.

Anyway, today’s discovery by Mac involves Delta SkyMiles. If you’re at all familiar with the program you’ve probably heard them referred to as SkyPesos before, and that’s for good reason — their redemption rates are ridiculous. That’s at least true if you’re trying to actually redeem miles for Delta flights. If you redeem on their partner airlines it’s not all bad news.

They partner with Air France to Europe, and they release a good amount of business class award space, which can easily be searched online. To Asia they partner with Korean Air, which also releases a good amount of award space. The challenge with Korean Air is that they don’t display business class award space online and they have a ton of blackout dates. For a while they displayed business class award space on ExpertFlyer, but unfortunately they stopped doing that. After all, knowledge is power, and the last thing Delta wants is for their consumers to have the power to redeem miles for flights at a reasonable level. Now the only way to book Korean Air awards is by calling up Delta SkyMiles, which is more or less a lost cause (“Korean Air, I ain’t never heard of them before!”).

But the one destination that has been a complete lost cause is South America. Delta doesn’t have any major partner airlines flying between the US and South America, and it’s very rare to find “low” level award space on Delta to South America, meaning you’re usually paying a minimum of 200,000 SkyMiles for roundtrip business class.

But there’s another option that’s actually very attractive, that can almost always get you saver business class award space to South America. Aeromexico partners with Delta, and they have a pretty good route network to South America. Before we get into the details of the strategy, let’s discuss the basics.

Aeromexico South America destinations and frequencies

Aermemexico operates the following nonstop flights out of their Mexico City hub to South America:

• Bogota daily on a 737
• Buenos Aires daily on a 767
• Lima daily on a 737
• Santiago 6x weekly on a 767
• Sao Paulo daily on a 777

Aeromexico’s business class product

On their longhaul flights (those destinations served be 767s and 777s) Aeromexico seems to have a pretty competitive business class product. You can read more about it here. While it’s not fully flat it does appear to be pretty comfortable, so I wouldn’t hesitate to fly it.

Finding award availability on Aeromexico

While you can book Aeromexico awards on delta.com (which is a fairly new feature) the best place to search for availability is on Air France’s website. You’ll need to be a member of their Flying Blue program first. Once you’re logged into your account you can click on the “Award Tickets” tab on the main page.

Once you click on that you’ll be redirected to the award search page. The key to finding Aeromexico availability is to search segment-by-segment. I’ll show you how to search for availability from the US to Mexico City later, though for now we’re just focusing on finding the longhaul award space.

Let’s assume you want to fly from Mexico City to Buenos Aires. Just enter the origin, destination, and class of service, and click on “Search.”

The results page will bring you a calendar view of the award space at the saver level. As you’ll see, award space is spectacular. I chose random dates in September, figuring it’s neither low season nor high season in South America, and got the following results:

As you can see, on the outbound from Mexico City to Buenos Aires, 19 of the 35 days on the calendar have business class award availability:

And on the return, 34 of the 35 days on the calendar have business class award availability:

And for a slight reality check of just how great that is, let’s check in with Delta for the same time period between Atlanta and Buenos Aires:

The “low” level awards are shaded green. As you can see, they only have two dates for the same time period on the outbound, and five dates on the return (and frankly, that availability is shockingly good for Delta).

Anyway, back to the Air France search tool. Once you’ve selected your preferred dates just click “Next, select flight,” and you’ll be brought to the results page. I selected September 8-15.

Not surprisingly the results page shows us the nonstop Aeromexico flights in business class:

So now you’re done with the Air France website. You can apply the same strategy to searching for any of Aeromexico’s other destinations in South America. Now it’s time to get to Mexico City.

Getting to Mexico City

There are a couple of ways to get to Mexico City. One way is on Delta, where you’re faced with the same issues you always are with Delta — they just don’t release a whole lot of award space at the “low” level. But Delta also partners with Alaska Airlines, so you can instead fly them from Los Angeles to Mexico City, and they release a ton of first class award space.

Alaska Airlines has twice daily nonstop service out of Los Angeles to Mexico City, and has connections from many other cities to LA. The easiest way to search Alaska Airlines award space is either on alaskaairlines.com or ExpertFlyer. Since alaskaairlines.com is the free option that doesn’t require membership, let’s use that.

To search award availability just go to their award search page.

Just enter the origin, destination, dates, and be sure the boxes for “Award Reservations” and “Award Calendar” are checked.

The next page will bring you a calendar display. If you see a cost of 32,500 miles each way for first class, that’s the saver level, which should be bookable through Delta as well.

After you have your dates selected you can click “Continue,” which will show you the flights with availability.

Based on the flights I’m trying to connect to, the third option would work best for me, and now I know it’s available at the saver level.

One other option — flying Aeromexico to Mexico City

It’s also worth noting that Aeromexico serves many destinations in the US, including Houston, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, and more. They also release a decent amount of award space on their flights, so using the same method outlined above, you can search for their award space from the US using the Air France website as well. You can either search segment-by-segment to get the most accurate results (in other words, search availability from your US gateway separately from availability between Mexico City and South America), or you can search them all at once if you want to get the quickest results.

So you could instead search New York to Buenos Aires all at once, as follows:

As you can see it won’t return as many results. For the same outbound you only see three dates available:

While for the return you see 15 dates available:

If you select dates you’ll notice that the connections work out quite nicely:

Hey, options are always a good thing…

Putting it all together

Let’s recap, We know the Aeromexico flights are available at the saver level, and we also know the Alaska Airlines flights are available at the saver level. We used the individual airlines’ websites to search for the space even though delta.com will display their award space as well. The difference is that the above sites allow you to search for award availability off of a calendar, which opens up lots of options. But now that we know which flights we want, we’ll go to delta.com to actually make the booking. Let’s say we prefer the Alaska Airlines flights out of LAX over the Aeromexico flights out of New York.

Once on delta.com click on “SkyMiles” and then “Use Miles.” Then click on the first tab for “Award Ticket Reservations.”

Once you’re on the next page you’re going to want to click on the “Multi-city” tab. Why? Because if you just search flights between Los Angeles and Buenos Aires, delta.com will only present you with options that are more direct on Delta, which will likely cost double the cost (or more). By searching segment-by-segment we’ll be forcing them to give us the options we want.

Once you click “FIND FLIGHTS” you’ll be given options for each individual segment, so just pick the flights we chose above.

First from Los Angeles to Mexico City:

Then from Mexico City to Buenos Aires:

Then from Buenos Aires to Mexico City:

And then from Mexico City to Los Angeles:

Once you’ve selected each individual flight you’ll be brought to the results page, where you’ll see the low level cost of 100,000 Delta SkyMiles plus $66.95 in taxes.

And just to prove it actually works, here’s the above routing out of New York on Aeromexico the whole way priced out as well:

As a reminder, Delta allows one stopover and one open jaw on an award ticket. So if you want to stopover in Buenos Aires and/or fly out of one city in the US and return to another, you can do that on a SkyMiles award.

Anyway, hopefully some of you guys find this helpful. If you have any questions, please let me know! And a big thanks to Mac for bringing this to my attention!