1.29.24
While Google Flights is a well-known and reliable resource for finding and comparing cash flights, it has always been more difficult in the award travel space to compare options. Short of going airline to airline and navigating their disparate and often confusing menus, there wasn't really another way. In the past several years, however, several tools have hit the market to create a user friendly, one stop shop for comparing award flights across a comprehensive list of airlines. Of those tools, seats.aero has emerged as my favorite tool to use. The flexibility, collection of programs, and reliable results have made hunting for award flights, whether a very specific route or a wanderlust fix, really easy.
Overview
Currently, seats.aero has 14 airline partners you can Explore. All 3 alliances (Star, SkyTeam, One World) are represented so no matter where you are going or what type of points and miles you have, the tool can be useful for finding awards.
You can search with very general parameters and filters, such as continent to continent, or specific routes. The best way to explain the tool is through examples.
Explore
The Explore tab allows you to pick a program and then run searches from continent to continent. You can then filter and sort your results to meet your needs. Say I want to go to Europe this fall in business class. I start first with the Air France/KLM Flying Blue tab, filter North America to Europe and the results populate, sorted by date.
I can filter details such as departure/arrival city and length to search (60 days or full year) with the blue boxes at the top and can then sort results with the black column headlines. You can also search a specific airport code in the search box top right. Here I've filtered by Departs= JFK, BOS, IAD, DTW and seats=2, then sorted by business flights. This is page one, there are over 150 business class dates to either Amsterdam or Paris at 50K points in business.
You can also enter specific values in the boxes at the bottom of the page to filter further. So for my fall trip I've entered 2024-09 (Sept 2024) under the date column to see only the results for that month. I could then replicate that with Oct (10) and Nov (11) if desired. There were no business class flights in September but I see several in October and even more in November.
You could then run these same searches for other airlines that you have points with under Explore to see what other options to Europe there may be.
One more example; say you only have United Miles and want to go to South Africa. By applying the same tactics, I have filtered Full Year, arrival cities JNB (Johannesburg) and CPT (Cape Town) and sorted by business class flights. There are about 70 dates with business class seats from the US (mostly Newark) to those destinations at 88K miles.
Search
Under the Search tab at the top of the homepage, you can choose specific routes if you lack the flexibility. Enter your city pair(s), dates with the ability to +- up to 7 days and then filter/sort the results as before. This will give you results across all programs they search, so you could filter out the programs, alliances, or transfer partners you have flexible points with. Here I've searched CLE-LAX for a date in July with +-3 days and sorted the economy flights to find several 15-20K options with United.
As with almost any search you do, if you click on the grey "i" button to the right of the flight you are interested in, it will give you specific flight details. You can then take this info to the airline website in order to book.
Routes
This tab allows you to search more specifically in one program for a route you are interested in. Whereas the Search function covers all airline programs over a more select date period, Routes can search one program over the whole date calendar. Routes essentially takes you to Explore with the city pair already filtered. You can spend time playing with all the options to see which fits your need best. I almost exclusively use Explore and filter from there but I will use Routes occasionally also.
When you click on Routes, a list of all the available route combinations comes up. You can enter one airport in the search filed to narrow it down. In this Routes example below, I am interested in Chicago (ORD) to Tokyo (HND). I am going to search through United, American, and Delta and filter by April 2024. Below you see the results sorted by economy flights. This shows you the differences in points required between the 3 US programs.
Tools
There is a special section listed under the Tools tabs that can be used for some of the best but hardest to find award redemptions. For example, Lufthansa first class is highly coveted between the US and Germany, but they typically only open up award space to their star alliance partners (United, Air Canada, etc) within days of departure. So if you wanted to nab a close in first class flight, here's what the "Lufthansa First Class" tool shows. Of the 21 entries, there is only 1 from the US, from ORD on 1-28. You can then take this information to the various Lufthansa partners that you have points with to confirm and compare.
Another option under Tools is Q-Suites, a highly touted business class product on Qatar Airlines that can be flown from the US to Doha, Qatar (DOH). This route can be a springboard to the Middle East, Asia, Africa, and the Maldives. Finding QSuites isn't easy, however, so the "Qatar QSuites Finder" can be helpful. Here you see Atlanta-Doha availability this year, and you can take these available dates and search through Qatar's website or their partners such as British Airways or American Airlines.
Alerts
Seats.aero allows you to set alerts, and they will notify you via email if a flight becomes available that meets your filters. You choose a program, airports, date(s) and class you are looking for. There are further filters in the Pro version. These alerts can be invaluable if you are searching for specific awards that are hard to find.
Caveats
Seats.aero is just a tool, and should be used as an overall part of your award flight searching strategy. It has some limitations:
Although all the alliances are covered, there are some programs seats.aero doesn't search. Airlines such as Singapore, British Airways, Cathay Pacific, and Southwest to name a few.
The tool is more catered to searching major cites and routes. You aren't going to find anything from Grand Rapids, MI or Ames, Iowa. If you are flying from a small airport, you can instead search to/from major hubs near your home or just major US hubs in general and then either:
Position to that city- fly a separate ticket from your home airport to Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, etc. to then grab your long haul award, or
Once you find the long haul, go to the website for the airline you found it on and see if you can potentially add the domestic leg to the route you found on seats.aero at the same or only slightly more points. In my Air France example above, although seats.aero only shows flights to Paris or Amsterdam, you can likely connect further in Europe on the same ticket.
Either way, I find the best use of seats.aero is to find the available long haul award flights and then go to the airlines homepage and fine tune the details.
That leads to another caveat. Because seats.aero isn't showing real-time availability, but instead info cached in the past, it may not always be accurate. Prices change, seats get bought up, so you must use the results only as a guide and then further verify the award actually still exists.
I left the bad news for last, although I've alluded to it. There is a free and PRO version of seats.aero. The PRO version costs $9.99/month and adds a year of availability (vs 60 days), advanced filters in both searching and setting alerts, and SMS alerts. The most worthwhile feature is the full year of flights, but for close in searching, the free version is adequate.
Conclusion
Earning points and miles is easy compared to figuring out how to use them for great value to take the trip of your dreams. Seats.aero can greatly assist you in wading through all the intricacies of searching awards and offers a unique platform for comparing your options. I highly recommend you take a look for yourself and hope you find the same value in it as I do.