Finding reward seat availability can be one of the most difficult and frustrating aspects of collecting frequent flyer points. It’s relatively easy to earn points, but redeeming them to fly when and where you want can be a bit more of a challenge.

Luckily, there are now lots of award search tools that can make it easier to find that elusive award availability!

In addition to the original award search tools – the likes of KVS Tool, Award Nexus and ExpertFlyer – there are now some rather nifty next-generation tools such as:

• SeatSpy
• AwardLogic
• Point.me
• Reward Flight Finder
• Virgin Atlantic’s Reward seat checker
• Award hacks (Star Alliance award search tool)
• AwardFares
• PointsYeah
• Roame

There’s now a lot of competition for tools that help with award searches, and they seem to be getting better and better. But my personal favourite award search tool at the moment is Seats.aero.

Why I like Seats.aero

With Seats.aero, you can see award availability across many different routes and dates on a single page. You don’t have to search for one route at a time.

With a free account, you can instantly see award availability across the next two months. And with a Pro subscription, you can view available seats over the next year.

When searching with Seats.aero, the results are almost instant. You can then easily sort and filter your results to find options that you really want. You can also set up award seat alerts, and instantly view flights to or from any airport that’s covered by the site.

This is a seriously powerful award search tool, and one that I personally use. It has saved me a lot of time.

Seats.aero now supports Qantas and Velocity Frequent Flyer

Seats.aero shows award seats that are available to book online through 12 frequent flyer programs. This includes programs across the Oneworld, Star Alliance and SkyTeam alliances. It also supports programs like Emirates Skywards and Virgin Atlantic Flying Club, which both partner with Amex Membership Rewards in Australia.

This has already been a useful tool for Australians for a while. But it became infinitely more useful a few weeks ago, when Seats.aero added support for Velocity Frequent Flyer and Qantas Frequent Flyer. This means you can now use it to instantly identify award seats that are available for booking as Velocity Reward Seats on the Virgin Australia website, and Classic Flight Rewards on the Qantas website.

Which other frequent flyer programs does Seats.aero support?

Here’s a full list of the frequent flyer programs supported by Seats.aero, and the airlines for which availability is shown when searching via those programs:

How to use Seats.aero

Here’s an overview of how to get the most from Seats.aero…

The Explore feature

In the “Explore” mode, you can search for award availability using any of the frequent flyer programs listed above. In the example below, we’ll use Qantas Frequent Flyer.

You can view flights from anywhere to anywhere, or filter by region (Oceania, Asia, Europe, etc.). If you have a free account, you’ll then see any award availability that matches this criteria for departure dates within the next two months. If you have a Pro account and tick the “Show extended availability” box, you’ll see availability for the next year.

The minimum number of Qantas points required to book a seat on that route and date will be shown for each cabin class with availability. Results shown in green are direct flights, while blue boxes indicate indirect flights. You can hover your mouse over the box to see which airlines have availability.

Note that Seats.aero uses IATA airport codes such as “AKL” for Auckland and “SYD” for Sydney. If in doubt, you can always look up the airport codes or consult our guide to IATA airport codes.

By default, the search results are in order by departure date, with direct flights also shown before indirect options. But you can use other criteria to sort the results by clicking on the relevant heading. For example, if you want to show flights with Premium Economy availability at the top, click on “Prem Economy”.

There may be one or more flights with award seats available on each date and route shown in the search results. To view more information about the available flights, simply click on the “i” box to the right. This will then bring up a box with more details about the flight times and pricing:

If you have Velocity points and you’re looking for Business award availability to North America, for example, you can select “Virgin Australia Velocity” from the Explore menu. Then, adjust the drop-down options to show flights from Oceania to North America. This should then display all United and Air Canada availability from Australia or New Zealand to the USA or Canada.

When viewing Velocity availability, you can even see the number of seats available in each cabin class by hovering over the green (or blue) box.

Looking for seats to/from specific airports

If you’re looking for award availability to or from a specific airport, such as Darwin, simply type the IATA code for that airport into the search box. In this instance, typing “DRW” (for Darwin) on a Virgin Australia Velocity search for flights from Oceania to Asia brings up options from Darwin to Singapore on Singapore Airlines.

Search feature

If you have points available with multiple different airlines – or a flexible credit card rewards program – you can also use the “Search” feature to look for flights between specific airports using any of the supported frequent flyer programs.

Creating alerts

Seats.aero also lets you create alerts for award availability on specific routes and cabin classes with any of the supported programs. You’ll then receive an email or SMS if Seats.aero identifies any award availability that matches your search criteria in the future.

ExpertFlyer also has a popular award alert feature. But with ExpertFlyer, you can only set this up for one individual flight and cabin class at a time.

Other features

Other Seats.aero features include a Lufthansa First Class award finder and a tool for finding Qatar Airways Qsuite redemptions.

Once you’ve found a flight you’re happy with, you can go directly to your airline’s own website to complete the booking.

Some limitations to keep in mind

Although Seats.aero works pretty well, there are some limitations.

One slight problem is that the results are cached. So by regularly checking for availability in the background, Seats.aero is able to show the results of any search very quickly. But you’ll generally be looking at information that could be up to 8 hours old. The good news is that it does actually tell you when the seats shown were last checked. If you click on the “i” box beside any of the results, it will do another verification check on the spot to make sure the seats are still there in real-time.

Another limitation is that Seats.aero doesn’t (yet) cover all routes. For example, it doesn’t cover most Qantas domestic routes other than a few of the most popular ones (such as Melbourne-Perth, Brisbane-Perth and Sydney-Lord Howe Island). It also doesn’t cover every partner airline route, so it will potentially miss some options that do actually exist. That said, Pro members can request new routes to be added – and I’ve found Seats.aero to be very responsive in adding suggested routes.

Seats.aero won’t show award seats on airlines that don’t appear on your frequent flyer program’s own website. For example, reward seats on Virgin Atlantic, Hawaiian Airlines and South African Airways don’t appear on the Virgin Australia website. So you’d still need to use other methods to find seats on those airlines before calling Velocity Frequent Flyer to book.

Availability on specific flights can differ according to your status & frequent flyer program

If using the Qantas Frequent Flyer search function, you should also keep in mind that Seats.aero won’t necessarily take into account your Qantas Frequent Flyer status. If you have Qantas Silver, Gold, Platinum or Platinum One status, you may have access to increased award availability that you would be able to see when searching on the Qantas website. But those extra seats wouldn’t appear on Seats.aero (nor on most other third-party tools, other than KVS Tool which searches using your personal account details).

You should also keep in mind that award availability can differ depending on which frequent flyer program you’re using to book. For example, Singapore Airlines is a Star Alliance member and partners with Virgin Australia. But the availability of Singapore Airlines award seats could be different for members of KrisFlyer, Aeroplan, Velocity, Avianca LifeMiles and United MileagePlus.

Nonetheless, this is a very useful tool for quickly getting an overview of award availability. It can identify flights you may not have otherwise found (or thought to look for)!

Seats.aero membership options

Anyone can use Seats.aero for free, without creating an account. This gives you access to information about award seats on flights within the next 60 days. You’ll also be able to set up a limited number of email alerts.

If you choose to purchase a Pro account, you can get access to more features. These include:

• Search for award availability up to a year in advance
• Access advanced filters including direct flights and minimum number of seats (this works with most but not all programs)
• Create unlimited award seat alerts
• The option to receive SMS notifications, rather than just emails
• Access route-level statistics
• Use the United PN/PZ Finder (United’s special fare classes for upgrade availability)
• Access the Seats.aero Discord server

A Pro plan costs USD9.99 (~AU$15) per month or USD99.99 (~AU$150) with an annual subscription. The annual subscription works out to be around 16% cheaper.

See the Seats.aero website for more information or to register.

Disclosure: As seats.aero is an affiliate partner, Australian Frequent Flyer may receive a commission if you sign up through links on this page. Thank you for your support.

Matt Graham

The editor of Australian Frequent Flyer, Matt's passion for travel has taken him to over 90 countries… with the help of frequent flyer points, of course!
Matt's favourite destinations (so far) are Germany, Brazil & Kazakhstan. His interests include aviation, economics & foreign languages, and he has a soft spot for good food and red wine.

You can connect with Matt by posting on the Australian Frequent Flyer community forum and tagging @AFF Editor.