My Favourite Airline Award Chart Sweet Spots

You can often get great value when redeeming frequent flyer points because the cost of a reward flight is not tied to the cost of a commercial airfare. As a result, some redemptions are not that valuable… while others offer truly outsized value!

A good way to maximise the value of your points is to book flights that would otherwise be expensive, but only cost a small amount of points and taxes when booked as a reward ticket. To do this, you need to understand where the “sweet spots” are in your frequent flyer program’s reward charts.

Over many years of looking at frequent flyer program award charts, I’ve come across lots of quirks and loopholes that make it possible to get exceptional value for your points! In this article, I share six of my favourite ones that you can still book in 2024…

Different types of airline award charts

First of all, it’s worth looking at how airline award charts work.

Each frequent flyer program has its own method of calculating the number of points or miles you’ll need to book a reward flight. In most cases, you can check the amount of points needed for any particular routing on the airline’s award charts.

Different airlines use different types of award charts. The most common ones are:

• Region-based award charts – where pricing is based on the geographical regions you’re flying to and from (e.g. Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer)
• Distance-based award charts – where pricing is based on how far you fly (e.g. Qantas or Velocity Frequent Flyer)
• Hybrid award charts – where pricing is based on a combination of the regions you’re flying between and the distance flown (e.g. Air Canada Aeroplan)
• Dynamic pricing – where no award charts are published and pricing is either tied to the cost of a commercial airfare or isn’t transparent at all (e.g. Delta SkyMiles or Air France/KLM Flying Blue).

It’s difficult to get value out of programs that price reward flights dynamically. But you can get outsized value from region and distance-based award charts!

With distance-based award charts, you’ll often get the best value on shorter flights that are very expensive. And with region-based award charts, the trick is to look for geographical quirks – such as zones that are very large and have low pricing for intra-zone flights.

You can learn more about airline award charts in our Frequent Flyer Training courses! This is covered in particularly extensive detail in Course 5 (Finding & Booking Reward Flights), which is available to all AFF Platinum members.

With the different types of airline award charts in mind, let’s look at some specific examples of great sweet spots!

Qantas Frequent Flyer: Sydney to Lord Howe Island

One of the absolute best value uses of Qantas Frequent Flyer points is to fly to Lord Howe Island. This idyllic paradise is located just under 600 miles from Sydney, meaning it’s a “Zone 1” redemption on the Qantas Classic Flight Reward table. Instead of paying around $600 (or even more) for a one-way ticket, it costs just 8,000 Qantas points and around $100 in taxes & charges to book a Classic Reward seat.

A QantasLink Dash 8 200 series aircraft operates this route, which only has Economy Class. Still, the service on board is pretty good as this is a “premium” route for QantasLink. And once you arrive, you’re in a stunning destination that few people will ever visit. Just beware that accommodation on the island can be limited during peak periods.

Sydney-Broken Hill is another great value QantasLink redemption. It’s also just under 600 miles in distance, and the airfares aren’t generally that cheap. I’ve visited Broken Hill a few times and really enjoyed it.

Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan: Australia to New Zealand

Alaska Airlines updated the award charts used by its Mileage Plan program in April. Sadly, these changes removed a lot of the previous “sweet spots” such as Sydney-Los Angeles in Qantas First Class for 70,000 Alaskan miles. At the same time, the new Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan award charts have opened up some interesting new sweet spots.

Alaska Airlines and Qantas are both part of the Oneworld alliance, so you can redeem Alaska Airlines miles to fly Qantas. On routes to, from or within the Asia-Pacific region, Qantas reward flights on routes up to 1,500 miles in distance cost just 7,500 Alaskan miles in Economy, 10,000 miles in Premium Economy or 15,000 miles in Business Class, plus taxes.

Many of Qantas’ trans-Tasman flights cover less than 1,500 miles, so are bookable at these low rates.

Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer: Middle East to Europe

I’m a big fan of the Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer award charts in general. But there’s a particular redemption on the KrisFlyer Star Alliance award chart that I really like – from Europe to or from the “Middle East/North Africa” zone.

It costs 34,500 KrisFlyer miles (plus taxes) to book a Star Alliance award in Business Class within Europe. That’s not bad value. But it’s only 33,500 miles (plus taxes) – 1,000 miles less – to fly from Europe to the Middle East or North Africa in Star Alliance Business Class. Now that’s a deal!

For example, you could fly Lufthansa Business Class from London to Frankfurt for 34,500 KrisFlyer miles. But if you flew from London to Dubai, via Frankfurt, it’s only 33,500 miles in total. When booking a round-trip award, you can even add a free stopover in one direction.

The Middle East/North Africa zone also includes the rest of the Arabian peninsula, Morocco, the Caucasus, Egypt, Jordan, Türkiye and Cyprus.

A few years ago, I took advantage of this sweet spot and redeemed KrisFlyer miles to fly from Muscat to Amsterdam via Istanbul in Turkish Airlines Business Class.

Aegean Miles+Bonus: Any route within South & Central America

I recently flew from El Salvador to Argentina – quite a long trip covering almost 4,000 miles. A one-way Economy Class airfare would have been more than $700. Instead, I booked an award ticket for just 12,500 Aegean Miles+Bonus miles and AU$59 in taxes.

This was a great deal because Aegean uses a region-based award chart with rather large geographical zones, and intra-zone awards are inexpensive. Using Aegean miles, you could fly anywhere within Central or South America on Star Alliance airlines for just 12,500 miles in Economy or 21,000 miles in Business, one-way, plus taxes.

I flew with avianca via Bogota, but I could have also used Copa Airlines – or even flown via Houston on United Airlines for the same number of Aegean miles.

Aegean Miles+Bonus awards within Europe or Africa are also great value. However, note that you can only have up to one transit per one-way itinerary and no stopovers are allowed.

Virgin Atlantic Flying Club: Sydney or Melbourne to Bali

Virgin Atlantic Flying Club is a handy frequent flyer program because Virgin Atlantic is part of SkyTeam. Many award flights are inexpensive and there is good award availability to and from Australia on SkyTeam airlines, including in Business Class.

One of my favourite uses of Virgin Atlantic’s “Virgin Points” is flying from Sydney or Melbourne to Bali on Garuda Indonesia.

Garuda uses Airbus A330s on these routes with lie-flat Business Class seating. You can often find multiple Business Class award seats per flight, and it costs just 40,000 Virgin Atlantic points plus taxes & charges each way.

Don’t forget that you can transfer points from Amex Membership Rewards to Virgin Atlantic Flying Club.

United MileagePlus: Pacific Islands to Japan (or intra-Europe)

One of my favourite airline award chart sweet spots is with the United Airlines MileagePlus program. A great loophole lets you fly all the way from any of the Pacific Islands to Japan – via New Zealand and/or Australia – for fewer miles than a direct Australia-Asia flight.

For example, at the current award pricing, you could fly from Fiji to Tokyo (via Melbourne and Bangkok) for 22,000 United miles in Economy or 38,500 miles in Business Class, plus $215.28 taxes.

If you booked a United award ticket from Melbourne to Bangkok only, using the same Thai Airways flight, it would cost 35,000 miles in Economy or 90,000 miles in Business!

By the way, you could earn 20,000 bonus United MileagePlus miles by applying for a HSBC Star Alliance credit card by 31 August 2024 and selected United as your status airline.

Unfortunately, United MileagePlus has developed a frustrating habit of changing its award flight prices without notice. So, I would not suggest collecting United miles for any specific redemption unless you’re ready to book immediately.

Where to find more great tips and tricks

In our upcoming AFF webinar on Wednesday 12 June, we’ll take a detailed look at the frequent flyer programs of Virgin Atlantic, Alaska Airlines and Aegean Airlines. By attending this webinar, you can learn more about earning and redeeming miles with each of these programs. Click here to learn more about AFF webinars.

If you’d like personalised assistance with redeeming your existing frequent flyer points, you can also get in touch with the Frequent Flyer Concierge team.

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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.