Rewards travel today: Too many points, not enough seats

These days, airlines are happy to shower you with sign-up bonuses and juicy earning multipliers to get you to spend on their credit cards. It’s supposed to be a mutually beneficial relationship: You get award travel, and the airlines get record profits. Delta Air Lines, for example, earned nearly $2 billion from its American Express partnership in just the last three months of 2024 — up 14% from the previous year.

The problem, though, is that the points and miles you earn are buying less travel than they used to.

Just look at British Airways, which increased some partner award prices by 60% in under a year, or Air France-KLM’s Flying Blue, which recently raised the number of points needed for awards between 14% and 25%.

What’s behind this wave of devaluations, and more important, what can you do about it? The answer lies in understanding how dramatically airline loyalty programs have evolved — and knowing where to look for remaining sweet spots before they vanish.

The fundamental problem is simple: too many points chasing too few seats. “What we’ve seen over time is a lot of miles being printed, and we haven’t seen a concomitant increase in the number of unsold airline seats available for redemption,” said Gary Leff, an airline industry expert who writes about airlines and loyalty programs on his blog, View From the Wing.

When frequent-flyer programs began, planes averaged only about 65% full. Once a flight took off, those empty seats could never be sold, so airlines used points and miles to fill them. Today, planes run closer to 85% capacity or higher. Simultaneously, credit card partnerships have airlines issuing more points than ever, and most airlines have switched to dynamic award pricing that fluctuates with demand.

The result? For most Americans, who hold the bulk of their points in major U.S. airline programs, award prices are soaring. “When you’re booking with domestic airlines — think United, American Airlines or Delta — the points-to-actual-cash-value that you find is not that big,” said Tim Qin, co-founder of the award travel search engine Roame. United’s MileagePlus program, for instance, now routinely charges up to 1 million miles for business-class tickets that once cost 150,000 miles.

Even when seats are available, the patterns for booking them have shifted significantly. Airlines used to reliably release award seats at two key times: when schedules first opened (usually 330 to 360 days before departure) and one to two weeks before the flight. The time window is now often even shorter.

Airlines are also restricting partner bookings. Airline alliances — including Oneworld (where American is a member), SkyTeam (Delta) and Star Alliance (United) — allow you to use one airline’s miles to book flights on partner carriers. For example, you can use Delta miles to book flights on Air France and KLM, or American miles to book on Qantas. Some carriers now restrict their best awards to their own rewards program members, rather than making them available to alliance partners. That forces travelers to navigate an increasingly complex web of programs and rules.

“Lufthansa used to release their first-class seats to Air Canada Aeroplan within two weeks of departure,” Qin said. “They first narrowed it down to one week, and now I believe they’re close to three days.”

Yet value still exists if you know where to look.

“Iberia’s program is lesser known,” Qin said. “You can fly Iberia from the U.S. to Europe for about 42,000 points in business class.” You can also book on Qatar Airways, a sought-after long-haul carrier, using Iberia’s program, he added. “Most people in the U.S. don’t really think about Iberia. It’s not one of those talked-about programs like Air France or British Airways.”

So how can travelers navigate this shifting landscape? Start by focusing on transferable credit card points rather than airline-specific miles. This allows you to redeem your earned points with multiple frequent-flyer programs.

“Rely less on the airline to just offer you a good deal,” Leff said. “Often you want two cards: one that earns multiple points in the category where you spend the most, and one that pairs in the same ecosystem from the same bank that earns 1.5 or two points per dollar.” This means using two cards from the same bank — for example, pairing Chase’s Sapphire Preferred with its Freedom Unlimited card to pool their earned points.

This flexibility proves crucial as sweet spots move between programs. Virgin Atlantic, for instance, charges just 90,000 miles for ANA first-class flights to Japan. That same seat would cost 220,000 United miles. Even Flying Blue, Air France-KLM’s program, still offers business class to Europe for 60,000 points — notably less than what many U.S. carriers charge. Premium Amex and Chase credit cards allow points transfers to multiple airline programs — meaning cardholders aren’t tethered to one airline’s availability.

For families seeking multiple premium seats, timing becomes crucial. “If you’re going to Europe, you may be pleasantly surprised with Flying Blue because they offer multiseat availability even at their saver rates,” Qin said, referring to the lowest-priced award tickets that airlines offer. Some carriers, like Japan Airlines, often release blocks of award seats within two weeks of departure.

Leff recommends booking what’s available on your primary airline, and then watching for better options. Since most programs now waive change fees on award tickets, you can switch if partner space opens up. Just note that once you transfer flexible points to an airline, you can’t transfer them back.

Perhaps most important: Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of good.

“Remember, the best points are what’s best for you. If you need to book an economy-fare flight because that makes sense, do it,” Qin said. “Don’t always shoot for the perfect or the ideal, because you’ll just never use your points and they’re going to devalue.”