This page links to different airlines’ award charts. Compare the difference in award levels between airlines, for travel to the same destination, and redeem the least amount of miles to get the most bang for your buck!
Don’t worry if you don’t have miles in many programs because by reading Million Mile Secrets, you’re on the path towards accumulating lots of miles in many different programs!
Stay tuned – I will be writing posts on the best award redemptions for each airlines and tips on how to find flights to redeem. Subscribe to Million Mile Secrets via e-mail or RSS to ensure that you get updates!
Note: The “Metal” in “American Airlines Metal Award Chart” means that travel has to be on American Airlines airplanes i.e. the plane must be an American Airlines plane and codeshares are not allowed.
American Airlines:
- American Airlines (AA) AAdvantage Award Chart (AA Metal Only)
- American Airlines (AA) (One World Partner Award Chart)
- One World Airlines Distance Based Award Chart – This is great for trips where you will have many stopovers – since you can have up to 16 segments and 1 free stopover per segment
Redeeming miles on American Airlines and its partners is very easy. You can fly British Airways, from the US, almost anytime to Europe (though you have to pay fuel surcharges). And fly on Cathay Pacific to Asia, Jet Airways to India, or Qantas to Australia.
British Airways:
Delta Airlines:
- Delta Sky Miles Award Chart - Delta makes it very hard to redeem miles, but there are quite a few good value awards – including to Europe, Australia, Bora Bora and the Seychelles – through partner airlines.
United Airlines:
US Air:
- US Air Dividend Miles Award Chart (US Metal Only) – It is a much better value to redeem US Air Dividend Miles on Partner Airlines.
- US Air Dividend Miles Partner Award Chart
US Air makes it very easy to acquire miles which can be redeemed fairly easily for Star Alliance awards. Their call center is pretty hit-and-miss, so hang-up and call back if you can’t get the award you’re looking for.
I have earned and redeemed millions of airline miles and hotel points to travel the world for free. Now I'm blogging to help more people do the same! 
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Are these award charts still curret as of Nov. 2011?
thanks, Pat
@Pat Lum – They are current as of today, and I update them when they change!
We have created a calculator based on the various programs’ award charts, please check out our site
http://www.milez.biz
ph
Thanks, D, although you may want to update the BA links to the new Avios!
@Philipp Gysling – Thanks for the link.
@AK – Thanks for the reminder. I’ve updated the links to the new Avios charts.
millionmilesecrets
I have recently started a job in Indonesia. I would like to get the most travel rewards from the least number of flights. Jakarta, Singapore or Kuala Lumpar seem to be the only Hub Cities that I can get to directly from Balikpapan where I live.
The shortest flight back to North America (Vancouver, Can) seems to be with China Southern Airways. I also want to have access to the Lounge in Singapore. There is one in Terminal. I can also fly Business Class once a year. I am just trying to find out if there is a strategy I can develop to get free flight/ upgrades, lounge access etc quickly.
Thank you!
are there currently any lounge specials for AA in miami florida? i’m traveling from there to DR in December and want some where for me and the misses to put our feet up before the flight
So when we use Delta Skymiles to pay for a portion of the ticket (miles and the rest on a Delta credit card), we do not accumulate any miles as a result because we used some miles (no matter how small)?
Hi Darius
Amex is offering Special Offer: receive 40% more Avios when you transfer Membership Reward points between August 28, 2012 and September 27, 2012. Is that a good translation? what are avios miles valued at? Also do you have a referral link for the BA card? Thanks
i have 300,000 BA miles, do you know how many i need for a free 1st class ticket from USA to London?
@ i dodson - See this calculator to see how many Avios miles you need. Also plan on paying ~$500 each way in fuel surcharges. http://www.wandr.me/Avios-Calculator.aspx
I have received an offer to open USAirways credit card(Barclays) which should give me 40k miles + 5k miles for redeeming miles.
USAirways also has 100 % bonus for buying miles currently.I was thinking of buying enough to get me to 80K.(Is this a sound strategy?)
I was looking at their award redemption chart and * alliance redemption chart.
Here are my questions:
1) USAirways doesn’t fly to where i plan to fly(DTW-BOM) so their website doesn’t even allow to search for flights.So how to book a flight? I know i can call the call center to book for $40.Is this the only way and is it hard to redeem(by calling) to destinations where USAir doesn’t fly ?
2) Is it always 80K(economy) for roundtrip as shown on partner redemption chart OR do they have different redemption rates depending on the date of travel ?
3) This might be a stupid question but there are rumors of merger with AA.Does that mean US Air will be out of * alliance ?
I am new to miles and any advice is highly appreciated.
@Sachin – You get 40K miles sign-up bonus and pay 5K less miles when you redeem for a US Air flight. US Air doesn’t fly from DTW to India, but you could fly on Lufthansa from Detroit to Frankfurt and then to Mumbai. Or use Star Alliance airlines to fly to India. It is always 80K in coach at the low award level. If US Air merges, it likely will leave Star Alliance, but I don’t expect that to happen for at least 1 year.
See this post on how to use the ANA tool to search for Star Alliance flights.
1. I’d like to use my British Air miles to fly round trip Israel to NYC, How can I minimize the fuel charge? Can I avoid UK with a Partner Airline to minimize the fee?
2.I also have enough miles on American Airlines for round trip Israel to NYC. Any suggestion how I could book British Airlines and my wife book American Airlines and fly together (One World Alliance flights)
Thanks in advance for any suggestions!
Daraius,
Thanks for the advice.I opened a FF account with ANA but it doesn’t let me search for star alliance flights without any miles in my ANA account.
I am a loss to find a work around.
Are you suggesting that USAir also had different redemption levels like United/AA etal?
My AA miles card is almost impossible to book to Italy, because they only have so many seats on the planes or you have to book a long long time before traveling, or plan on spending several hundred dollars to stay overnight between flights.
I have tons of miles now, that I seem to only be frustrated when using them.
I have been so frustrated, I have enough for a business class trip but end up sitting up in coach instead and paying for another airline. This has happened far too many times. Any suggestions to which one to switch to?
I would like to use my miles without restrictions with as little as a month notice without having to use multiple flights.
Hi D. Your US airway chart is down for the 2nd link. And I don’t understand the difference
@cindee – Award booking usually requires a lot of flexibility. It could help to hire an award booking service to book the flights for you. You don’t pay them unless they find the flights for you.
@tommy.tran – The link loads for me! The 2nd chart lists the miles you’d pay for travel on US Air’s Star Alliance Partner’s such as United, Thai, ANA etc. if you redeem US Air miles for flights on those airlines.
hey there- I just saw an offer for Platnium Amex that says: Earn 100K Membership Rewards® points after you spend $3,000 during your first three months of Card membership– for avios- this roughly converts to 66,666 points at a 1.5 point to 1 Avios rate– I am trying to fly to Route: SFO-DXB- which under Avios you need roughly 45,000 Avios. Under Amex rules, there’s 1:1 conversion rate for Singapore, which flies to Dubai both on their own route: 95,000 on saver, 190,000 on standard. I can’t seem to calculate using alliance flights? (maybe my computer) Please advise what you think the best route may be. Thanks!
@Claire – AMEX usually has transfer bonuses to BA, so you’d wind up with more than 100K Avios. You also get a discount for booking Singapore airlines flights online.
I want to fly to 3 destinations(India, Vegas and Hawaii) from DFW whatever possible. What is the best miles to use for each of them. I have 100K AAdvantage, 50K UR, 25K SPG, 100K Southwest, 50K avios. Any suggestions pls?
I am am booking from US to Canada, Taxes are $5 but on return ticket from Canada to US taxes are higher ($64)? Can you please suggest why?
@nav – You could use Southwest or Avios for the trip to Vegas and perhaps AA miles for a free one way in Hawaii. Read milevalue for free oneway awards or an award booking service may be able to help you.
@Dan – Likely because of increased taxes and fees for entering the US from overseas.
My 75,000 miles expired in 21/1/2012. They asked me to pay $640 buy all back or $215 buy 50,000 miles back. Any other suggestion?
@gtdeng – It could be worth it since 60K is a coach trip to Europe or South America.
What is the cheapest way for someone from mumbai to travel to dallas and return back. How many miles I can use to bring someone using AA or United or Avois points?For Economy or Business. Any appox idea. Also where should I go and search for. Shall I go to each of these sites listed above?
@nav – It is 80K on United/US Air and 90K on American Airlines. However you will pay fuel surcharges when redeeming AA miles for flights on British Airways (~$300K), so this is usually not worth it except in business/first with AA miles.
When redeeming a 90k business north asia ticket on us airways, do you need the full 90k in the account or will 85k suffice for having the barclays card?
HI, I would love some advice on how in the world I can redeem my awards miles. I know you cannot book until 331 days out, and I was on the ball the day I could possibly find flights, I began looking. I was able to find tickets flying to Australia Dec. 24th, but absolutely cannot find any flight to get us back home anytime starting with Jan 3, 4, 5, or 6th. I check up to 3 x’s per day. Can you tell me if it is because that is because those dates are heavily traveled dates, so they have not released any tickets? I was told that they for sure release at least some reward tickets every day, but I sure have not seen any.
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I just tried booking 2 tickets to France using my American Airlines points. There were nearly $1400 additional in “taxes and fees”!! Is this normal??
I’m new to the miles game, but am trying to at least get partially-discounted travel to South America this summer (MCI->JFK->Colombia, unless another destination in northern South America provides a better deal). I’m sure this is common knowledge to many people here, but could you clarify an aspect of the award-redemption process—namely, if I have miles with one airline company, do I have to look at their awards chart when calculating how much my miles are redeemable for or can I look at the chart of one of their partner airlines? I keep seeing people say that high-value rewards come from gaining points with one airline and redeeminging with another, but, as I said, I’m not sure which awards chart you have to look at. On http://www.cardsfortravel.com, it said it needs to be the airline you earned the miles with, but, if that’s true, I’m not sure how you magnify the value for use on partner airlines. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
@yesleez – The 5K discount is only for flights on US Air, not partner airlines.
@bj – Those are tough dates since it is peak season, but award availability keeps on changing so keep checking.
@Grace - It could be that you are flying on British Airways which charges fuel surcharges, so not worth it unless in business or first class. Try searching for flights on American Airlines to London and then connect to British Airways to get to Paris.
@Peter – You have to look at the award chart of the airline on which you have miles, but can redeem for flights on their partners. See this post for more information.
Hey Big D,
You’ve had some great trips, how about your thoughts on the ultimate RTW using Delta miles.
Maybe hitting as many ‘bucket list’ type sites in the process: for me include The Great Wall, Machu Pichu, etc. or at least getting close enough someone could integrate another resource to achieve the highlights not close to the acceptable airports using Skymiles.
Care to put your considerable skills to that sort of challenge?
Second question, do you see Skymiles tanking any time soon?
L
@Lanny – The 2nd question is easier – yes, Delta will likely move to a revenue based program and the miles may not be worth much. For RTW, check out Milevalue or Delta Points. I’d love to be able to help, but don’t have the time. Delta partners with airlines which can get you where you want to go.
I am flying from Dallas to London this summer on business – I want to take my wife – what is the best way so we can both go business class? By coach and upgrade – How many points would that take? Are there better carriers to use for this? Ideally I’d like to add in a Dublin multi-leg on return.
I was thinking American Airlines/British Airways
Hello,
Thank you for all the work you have done to make it easier to understand the ins and outs of redeeming miles. I have two questions:
First, unless I am mistaken, your last response as to whether the above airline charts were current was in 2011. I know that a lot has happened since then. Are these charts current as of today, May 13, 2013?
And second, I am new to points travel and I am wondering if there are general numbers or ranges of numbers of airmiles for US to US, US to Europe, and US to Asia travel that most of the airline loyalty programs falls within for an economy, business and first class seat? I know there categories like supersaver and anytime, but if you could offer a clear range of airmiles for each that most of the industry falls within, I would appreciate that greatly.
Thank you!
@Jim – Using miles to upgrade tickets isn’t really worth it. Using miles for an award ticket is usually a better value, and it will cost 100K AA miles for a round trip in business class.
@Dave – The links go straight to the airline websites and are current. It is 60K in coach and 100K in business for a round trip to Europe, and about 65K in coach and 110K in business class to the Far East. Thanks for reading!