The sun rises in the east, sets in the west, and airlines and hotel chains obliterate their loyalty programs to charge you more points and miles … or eliminate the best deals altogether.
Those are the only certainties in life.
Pointsflation is out of control and shows no signs of stopping. That’s why we urge travelers to stop hoarding their miles and put them to use now – wait too long, and that awesome flight or hotel night you’ve been considering may disappear or cost substantially more. In fact, it’s already happened to many of our favorite redemptions, like booking lie-flat seats to Hawaii for 26,000 points each way or booking Delta One flights to Europe for 50,000 points each way.
We may not have a crystal ball, but here are a handful of award redemptions and related deals that we feel could join those zombies in the coming weeks and months. Take advantage while you still can … or don’t say we didn’t warn you.
Iberia Biz Class to Madrid from 41K
For years, it’s been one of the best deals in the world of points and miles, and it’s already gone up in price a few times over the years. We think it might happen again.
Booking Iberia business class to Madrid (MAD) for as low as just 34,000 miles and about $120 in taxes was a laughably good deal, but that’s a thing of the past. Now, that booking will cost a minimum of 40,500 miles each way (still a sweet deal!) during the off-peak months. Sure, finding the award availability to book Iberia business class to Europe or back can be a tad tricky … but so long as you’re looking in off-peak periods (read as: not over the summer or winter holidays) and looking at least nine months out, it can be done.
Iberia may not win awards for the world’s best business class, but the seats are comfortable (especially on the airline’s new Airbus A321neos), the food is good if not great, and – most importantly – you can’t beat this price.
Pair this redemption with one of the frequent 20% or even 30% transfer bonuses to British Airways and Iberia from the big banks like American Express and Chase, and it gets even better. Just 32,000 credit card points for a business class seat over to Europe?!
That is too good to last much longer. Honestly, I’m shocked it’s lasted this long.
How to Book It
For as long as this deal lasts, you can book an Iberia business class seat over to Spain or back to the States for as low as 41,000 miles each way using Avios from either British Airways or Iberia itself.
There are a few keys to make that happen:
- You’ll find the lowest rates on the shorter flights from Boston (BOS), New York City (JFK), Washington, D.C.-Dulles (IAD), and even Chicago-O’Hare (ORD). Longer flights from Miami (MIA), Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW), and Los Angeles (LAX) start at 51,000 miles each way.
- Iberia uses peak- and off-peak pricing, too: Flights during peak season stretches like summer, the winter holidays, and parts of spring will cost you at least 59,000 miles. Still, there are plenty of off-peak dates bookable starting at 41,000 miles each way.
- You’ll need to plan ahead. If you’re not looking at least eight to 10 (or even 11) full months in advance, odds are you won’t find any Iberia business class seats bookable, period.
Flying Emirates Biz Class to Europe for 85K Roundtrip! (Its Days are Numbered … )
Emirates offers a pair of funky fifth-freedom flights from the U.S. to Europe: one from New York City (JFK) to Milan (MXP) and another from Newark (EWR) to Athens (ATH).
For years, when you booked these Emirates flights using Emirates Skywards miles, you could get lie-flat seats from 108,000 miles roundtrip in business class – a significant savings from the one-way business class prices of 87,000 miles each way. However, Emirates jacked up its taxes and fees on those flights to about $900 roundtrip, immediately putting it out of reach for most travelers. Plus, Amex and Citi devalued their transfers to Emirates (800 Emirates miles per 1,000 transferred), as did Capital One (750 per 1,000 transferred).
Alas, another amazing redemption bites the dust, right?
Well, here comes Japan Airlines Mileage Bank, our favorite newcomer to transferable points and miles. With Japan Airlines, you can book these same flights for just 60,000 miles each way or 85,000 roundtrip and $250 in taxes and fees!
Here’s the problem: This deal might be in peril … and only barely has a pulse right now. When we searched for availability to book this again last week, we found that the dates available to book with Emirates and even its partner Qantas were not bookable with Japan Airlines anymore, possibly signaling an end to this extremely valuable booking method, or at least a pause in availability while JAL looks into new pricing.
Either way, if you see this in the wild, don’t wait to book it. Its time is probably running out!
The Ones That Got Away
Some bookings are just too good for this world. In this section, we pour one out for the deals that were too good to last, starting with one that we discovered.
Hawaiian First Class for 26K Points Using Finnair
Our Thrifty Traveler Premium flight deal analysts discovered this unbelievable workaround to booking Hawaiian Airlines First Class using Finnair Avios.
After Alaska/Hawaiian joined the OneWorld Alliance, when you called or chatted with its alliance partner Finnair, you could book Alaska/Hawaiian First Class flights to Hawaii from just 26,000 Finnair Avios each way – which is significantly less than the lowest 40,000-mile rate Alaska charges for its own seats on those flights.
That is because Finnair considered those seats “premium economy” rather than “business” or “first class” when it priced them, resulting in a huge discount on award tickets.
Given you had to call or chat with a Finnair agent to book these flights, the deal flew under the radar until we caught it earlier this year. (The screenshot above is from an actual chat with a Finnair agent confirming the rates.)
It was perfect. We sent it to our Thrifty Traveler Premium members a few times so they could book it. A few of us even booked it ourselves. Because it was so amazing, we decided to share our newfound knowledge with the world (we don’t gatekeep here!)
What happened next was predictable: It quickly died … because it was too good to be true all along.
Hyatt’s Best Bookings
In an earlier draft of this story, we wrote: “It’s only a matter of time before Hyatt takes a page out of the books of Hilton, Marriott, and IHG and sets nightly award rates based largely upon the cash price – thereby eliminating the outsized value in the program that travelers treasure.” Honestly, we all feared the worst.
It’s not quite dynamic, cash-based pricing, but Hyatt completely overhauled its award chart a few months ago, changing the number of World of Hyatt points required to book nearly every luxury hotel in its portfolio. The changes were brutal for Hyatt fans.
After analyzing more than 1,300 Hyatt properties, we found that not a single date at a top-tier Park Hyatt, Alila, or other Category 8 property got cheaper … and more than two-thirds of those nightly stays now cost more than before the changes in May.
Pair that with Chase devaluing its transfer ratio from the Chase Sapphire Preferred to World of Hyatt to a 4:3 ratio (it used to be 1:1 and still is for Chase Sapphire Reserve cardholders), and it’s a perfect storm of bad news for travelers who adore the Hyatt program.
Read our full guide to the World of Hyatt program!
Hilton’s 150K Award Cap
Hilton maybe could have taken the crown from Hyatt as the best hotel loyalty program out there with all these changes … if, that is, they hadn’t already obliterated their own award chart.
Whether you’re booking a luxury resort overseas or one of the hundreds of new Small Luxury Hotels of the World (SLH) properties, getting serious value out of your Hilton Honors points isn’t impossible. But you have to save up to a quarter million points for one hotel night in some cases.
The hotel chain has already begun raising rates at some of its top properties and at some of the best SLH locations over the past few years. But at least there was a hard ceiling: From the Waldorf Astoria Maldives Ithaafushi to Hermitage Bay in Antigua, saver award rates topped out at 150,000 points a night.
Not anymore.
Hilton bumped up that maximum saver award rate way back in early 2021, jumping from a 120,000-point threshold to 150,000 points. Now, those same nights are as high as 250,000 Hilton Honors points per night …
That’s largely due to the hotel chain’s (surprisingly excellent) new SLH partnership, which brought tons of new, high-value properties into the fold.
Is it worth it to pay 250,000 points per night for Hermitage Bay, the amazing all-inclusive resort down in Antigua, or Calala Island in Nicaragua, or Canaves Oia Suites on Santorini, or even Hilton’s own top-tier properties like the Waldorf Astoria in Cabo, the Maldives, and the Seychelles?
Read our guide to earning and redeeming Hilton Honors points … and get to booking some of the top Hilton properties.
Delta One to Europe for 50k Points Each Way (Are Other Bookings Soon to Go, Too?)
In a previous version of this story, we called out the ability to book Delta One flights to Europe for 50,000 points each way via Virgin Atlantic as too good to last much longer.
We were right: Virgin killed off that sweet spot a couple of years ago by tacking on nasty $1,000-plus surcharges. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
Even when Delta’s charging a mountain of SkyMiles for a flight, you can book those flights for less by turning to a partner carrier like Virgin Atlantic Flying Club or Air France/KLM Flying Blue – whose miles are even easier to earn through credit card transfer partners.
But over the years, those workarounds have gotten less and less lucrative.
It’s hard not to sense Delta’s fingerprints on these moves. We’re guessing the folks down in Atlanta don’t exactly love the idea of getting a bargain on their flights by using another airline’s miles. And that leaves Air France/KLM Flying Blue firmly in the crosshairs.
Whether you’re booking a quick domestic trip, heading to Hawaii or Mexico, or even trying to fly business class to Europe, Flying Blue has now emerged as the best way to book Delta flights these days. Will Delta stand for this? Booking roundtrip flights to Honolulu (HNL) that would cost you 100,000-plus SkyMiles … for just 54,000 miles total?
After all, we’ve already seen Air France/KLM mess around with award rates in recent years.
You can find great examples of this all over Delta’s map, too. If you’re eyeing a short – and I mean really short: under 500 miles each way – Delta flight, Virgin Atlantic is still a solid option. The airline charges 7,500 miles each way for these quick trips.
For almost everything else, Flying Blue miles are your best bet these days. That includes these much longer flights down to the Caribbean …
Again, finding the award availability to actually book Delta One flights home from Europe at these rates can be a real challenge. The handy “Delta One Finder” from Seats.aero – one of our favorite award search tools – can be invaluable.
No matter what, you can transfer credit card points from all the major banks to either program. So whether you’ve got points with Amex, Chase, Capital One, Citi, Bilt, or Wells Fargo, you’re set. Frequent transfer bonuses to both airlines can make these redemptions even better.
29K Points for Virgin Upper Class to London
Virgin Atlantic caught us all off guard when it transitioned to dynamic award pricing … because it was actually a good thing: It ushered in 29,000-point business class awards to London-Heathrow (LHR) – with half the fees Virgin previously charged, to boot!
That flipped our normal line about avoiding Virgin Atlantic Flying Club points to book Virgin-operated flights on its head. Suddenly, it became by far one of the best ways to get to Europe in business class. Transfer bonuses of 30% (or even 40%) from banks like American Express or Chase made it even better.
Virgin made a serious splash with this change. But in the months since, finding those 29,000-point (or even 35,000-point) awards to London or back has become increasingly difficult. These days, you’re far more likely to see rates closer to 50,000 points … if not double, triple, or even quadruple that sum.
And then, Virgin hiked the taxes and fees required to book these fares to a nasty $700 for flights from the U.S. to the U.K., and nearly $1,000 for flights from the U.K. to the U.S. If you wanted to book this in each direction, you’re looking at $1,700 in taxes and fees. (If you book a roundtrip instead of separate one-ways, you pay an extra $300 too!)
We feared this would disappear when Virgin started charging more points for these flights, but instead, something worse happened: they started charging higher fees.
SkyMiles Delta One Mexico Hack … But Who Needs It!
Remember when Delta One SkyMiles rates were never to be found for less than 200,000 or 300,000 SkyMiles each way?
Those were the dark days. The days when the term “Skypesos” entered the points-and-miles lexicon, and the days when Delta lost a generation’s worth of customers who wanted to fly business class using points and miles. Those days are over. Delta One SkyMiles flash sales have made a legendary resurgence in the last year, making us wonder if SkyMiles are essential once again.
But during the dark ages of SkyMiles, when we wrote a story called “The Sad State of SkyMiles”, there was one crafty hack to get a lower rate: Booking Delta One flights to Mexico.
When you started your search to or from a Mexican city like Mexico City (MEX), Cancún (CUN), or Puerto Vallarta (PVR), or anywhere in Central America, you could fly Delta One from 89,000 SkyMiles each way.
So while Delta was charting 420,000 SkyMiles for a Delta One seat from Paris (CDG) to Atlanta (ATL), you could tack on a connection to Mexico City (MEX) and get that price down to 89,000 SkyMiles instead. It was up to you whether you wanted to take that flight to MEX!
By the way, just last month we found those same CDG-ATL flights (along with Delta One flights to Europe from more than 150 U.S. airports) for just 97,700 miles each way – no Mexico hack needed.
Bottom Line
There’s one certainty in the world of travel: The best deals don’t last forever.
Some of our favorite deals have already bit the dust, but a few others remain. If you want to book one of these, we’d recommend you hurry.
