TPG received an email from a New York City public school teacher with 500,000 Capital One miles sitting in her account. She wanted to take her family to Europe over summer break but kept running into the same problem when trying to redeem her miles: The flights she wanted were either priced at double or triple the expected saver rates we often promote here at TPG or sold out in the cabin she wanted to travel in. She felt stuck and was looking for advice.
If that sounds familiar, you are not alone. Plenty of Americans are locked into the same handful of vacation dates each year, whether because of school calendars, education industry schedules or fixed workplace shutdown periods.
Peak travel periods, particularly the weeks around Thanksgiving, Christmas and spring break, plus the summer months when schools are on recess, are the most competitive periods in the award travel calendar, and you’ll likely incur the following frustrations: higher prices for award seats and fewer seats available, as well as crowded destinations and full flights.
Here’s what you might not have realized in your frustration. Having fixed, predictable vacation dates has several advantages if you can use these tips to maximize them.
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Know your travel dates every year
Some people only decide when to take a vacation after checking cash prices or award availability and finding something that works, which means they are always a step behind. An educator whose school term ends in late June and resumes in early September knows right now that next summer’s travel window will almost certainly fall in the same weeks. A parent locked into school holiday dates has those dates marked on the family calendar months before travel companies even start running promotions.
This gives you an edge over those who don’t know when they’ll travel, and you can keep an eye out for the best deals.
Book in advance when seats are first loaded
Most major airlines open their booking windows 330 to 361 days before departure. That first batch of award seats released when the schedule opens is often the best availability you will see, particularly in premium cabins, where some programs guarantee a certain number of seats on every flight to their members.
Because you know your dates so far ahead, you can research what a good redemption rate is and then mark your calendar for the exact day your target flights become bookable and search on Day 1, increasing your odds of being able to book what you want. I’ve booked Qatar Airways Qsuite flights to Australia with Avios for Christmas 361 days in advance several times because I know the exact date the cheapest award seats will be released.
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Choose programs with fixed award charts that do not punish peak travelers
While popular programs like Delta SkyMiles and United MileagePlus may charge significantly more points or miles during peak travel periods for flights they operate themselves, several programs that are transfer partners of major credit card currencies still use fixed award charts that charge the same number of points or miles year-round, especially for partner-operated flights, regardless of whether you are flying in February or the week after Christmas.
The programs I continue to use for fixed-date travel are Air Canada Aeroplan (for most partner-operated flights), Avianca Lifemiles, British Airways Club and Singapore KrisFlyer. If an award seat is available, it will cost the same on each date where a program uses an award chart. Some programs do have peak and off-peak pricing tiers, but the difference between the two is generally not as dramatic as what you will see with fully dynamic programs.
Set alerts and upgrade as availability opens closer to departure
Even if your ideal seat (like lie-flat one in business class) is not available on Day 1 of the redemption booking window, that does not mean it will never be available. Award space can be released throughout the booking cycle as airlines manage how full and profitable flights are. In fact, seats can open up as close as a few days before departure.
Even if you don’t find exactly what you are looking for when schedules first open, I highly recommend booking something “acceptable” (i.e., economy class) and then using tools like Seats.aero and ExpertFlyer (owned by TPG’s parent company, Red Ventures) to set alerts across programs so you are notified the moment award space becomes available on your fixed dates. Once award space appears for your specific dates, you can then upgrade your seat.
I recently had a great experience setting an alert for a lie-flat business-class seat across the Pacific on Fiji Airways during the Southern Hemisphere’s summer school holidays after initially not finding the availability I wanted.
Remember that redeemed points and miles are worth more during peak periods, not less
When you redeem points and miles at a fixed rate during a period when cash fares are at their highest, you are extracting maximum value from every point or mile you spend.
A round-trip economy-class ticket to Europe with Lufthansa might cost $800 on low-demand dates or 80,000 Air Canada Aeroplan points, giving your Aeroplan points a value of only 1 cent per point. However, if you can book flights 11 or 12 months in advance at the 80,000-point rate during popular holiday periods because you know when your vacation dates will be next year, the cash rate could easily climb to $2,000, making your redeemed Aeroplan points now worth an impressive 2.5 cents each.
Fixed-chart programs do not adjust their prices when cash fares spike. That means the peak-season traveler who plans early and uses the right program can get more value than the flexible traveler who redeems opportunistically at off-peak times.
Bottom line
I admit, traveling during peak periods with points and miles is harder than traveling in the off-peak shoulder seasons. But if your schedule is set by a tertiary calendar, a mandatory closed-office period or any other nonnegotiable commitment, you can still redeem your loyalty rewards for great value.
Try to focus on the advantages of fixed dates. You know exactly when you need to travel, can mark the day when award bookings open and can book before the casual or indecisive travelers might even start looking.
Book early, use fixed-chart programs that do not penalize peak dates, set alerts across multiple programs and enjoy your (fixed) travel.