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If you've paid attention to the AwardWallet Blog long enough, you've likely seen several mentions of Seats.aero. As frequent award travelers, it's one of the tools we appreciate the most. Seats.aero makes searching for award availability far easier than digging through various airline websites in hopes of stumbling upon a bookable seat.
Even better, Seats.aero keeps improving. Every now and then, it'll roll out new features like searchable programs (you can now track 25 of them!) and handy “Finder” tools to help you locate hard-to-find awards like Japan Airlines or Lufthansa First Class.
For those looking to add another tool to their award travel arsenal, this beginner's guide has everything you need to know about Seats.aero.
What Is Seats.aero?
Seats.aero is an award search tool with various features that simplify award travel planning. In short, it allows you to accomplish three primary things:
- Explore 25 airline frequent flyer programs for award availability between select regions using helpful filters. You can also use “Finder” tools to uncover coveted awards or upgrade space in select programs.
- Search award availability on a specific route — including live availability for Pro subscribers.
- Create specific award alerts for specific routes, dates, airports, and more.
What does Seats.aero cost — and what does a subscription get you?
You can access the majority of Seats.aero's offerings for free — no subscription required. As a non-paying user, you can enjoy the following benefits:
- Search award availability across 25 flyer programs for travel within the next 60 days.
- Create unlimited alerts for flight availability (email only).
However, there are plenty of reasons to sign up for a Pro account — which costs $9.99 per month or $99.99 if paid annually. As a paying subscriber, you can:
- Search up to one year of cached award availability across 25 frequent flyer programs.
- Create unlimited alerts for flight availability — with alerts via SMS and/or email.
- Advanced filters.
- Request that Seats.aero track specific routes.
- View seat maps and fare class availability.
- Remove all advertisements.
- Access a private Discord channel.
- Access special features like route-level statistics and GDS tools.
If you frequently book award travel, it's worth considering a Pro subscription. Accessing a year's worth of award availability is a valuable feature. Moreover, your support keeps Seats.aero's servers running.
Click here to sign up for a Seats.aero Pro account.
How to Use Seats.aero
Seats.aero is relatively easy to use — even more so if you have familiarity with airlines and their alliances, airport codes, and how transfer partners work. Having some knowledge of this landscape will make for a seamless Seats.aero experience.
But if you're starting from scratch, we'll cover the basics.
What airline frequent flyer programs does Seats.aero track?
Seats.aero scrapes 25 airline frequent flyer programs for award availability. The current list of supported programs includes the following, though some are still in Beta and may have limited access:
- Aeromexico Rewards
- Air Canada Aeroplan
- Air France/KLM Flying Blue
- Alaska Airlines Atmos Rewards
- American Airlines AAdvantage®
- Azul Fidelidade
- Copa ConnectMiles
- Delta SkyMiles
- Emirates Skywards
- Ethiopian ShebaMiles
- Etihad Guest
- Finnair Plus
- Frontier Airlines
- GOL Smiles
- JetBlue TrueBlue
- Lufthansa Miles & More
- Qantas Frequent Flyer
- Qatar Airways Privilege Club
- SAS EuroBonus
- Saudia AlFursan
- Singapore KrisFlyer
- Turkish Airlines Miles & Smiles
- United Airlines MileagePlus
- Virgin Atlantic Flying Club
- Virgin Australia Velocity Frequent Flyer
Chances are high that this list includes an airline frequent flyer program that you use — or that will show awards bookable with the mileage currency you have, even if that airline isn't directly listed.
For example, Seats.aero doesn't show award space bookable with British Airways Avios. However, you can see Oneworld partner space (and even British Airways award space) by exploring American Airlines AAdvantage and Alaska Airlines Atmos Rewards.
Explore
Seats.aero's Explore page allows you to search for bookable award seats by program. After hovering over “Explore” with your cursor, you'll see a dropdown menu highlighting the 25 frequent flyer programs Seats.aero tracks.
You'll also see airlines' transferable rewards partners to the right of the program name. This visual is helpful if you're unsure of which currencies transfer to which airline programs.
Just keep in mind that it might not be immediately up to date when transfer partners are added or removed. For instance, Rove added SAS EuroBonus as a transfer partner, and it took Seats.aero about a week to add the Rove logo.
By clicking on an individual program, you can explore itineraries bookable with points or miles. You can parse the results by sorting; hold the shift key to sort multiple columns.
Pro subscribers can create filters for region, departure and arrival airports, airlines, available seats, and more. For instance, you can filter to view flights from North America to Europe in business class. Filters are valuable if you're looking for a specific award operated by a particular airline, for example.
Pro and non-Pro subscribers can enter one or more basic parameters in the search bar. This can be a date (or partial date), a three-letter airport code, or even the max award cost. Sometimes, this rudimentary filter is all that's necessary to locate a specific award.
If you want to filter more specifically, scroll to the bottom of the page. There, you will find boxes that will let you filter each individual column — whether that's the departure date, departure or arrival airport, or the price of an award.
Booking a flight from the Explore section is simple. After you've found a flight or itinerary that works for you — direct flights are green, and indirect flights are blue — click on the information icon to the right of the listing. You'll see the flight option, the cabins you can book with points, and the list of booking options.
By clicking “Book via…,” you'll navigate directly to the booking page for your chosen airline program. Sometimes you can book your flight through multiple programs, so it's worth comparing if you have transferable rewards points.
Live award search
Seats.aero's Search feature allows you to search multiple programs simultaneously for an award between specific places and within a string of dates. It's a great option to get a bird's-eye view of the bookable options instead of searching program by program.
For example, you can search for award flights between New York (JFK) and London (LHR) on January 17, 2027 — give or take up to seven days for free subscribers and 180 days for Pro subscribers. Alternatively, you could search “LON” for all airports in the London metropolitan area, or try “UKD” for all large airports in the United Kingdom.
My favorite feature is that you can search for flights between multiple airports at the same time. Let's say you really want to go to the UK and Ireland, but you don't care where you start. You can enter both New York airports that offer transatlantic flights (JFK and EWR), as well as airports in the capital cities of the UK and Ireland (LON, EDI, DUB, CWL).
You'll (hopefully) see several results, which you can sort and filter. And, as with all the other Seats.aero pages, you can click the information icon to navigate to the booking page. You'll also see warnings, if applicable, like the one below:
“This mileage program may be experiencing increased levels of phantom availability.”
That helps you plan your redemptions and avoid transferring miles for a seat that doesn't actually exist.
One of Seats.aero's best features is live search availability, which is unique to Pro subscribers. Instead of cached results, Seats.aero will add real-time search results between your entered origin and destination airports — even if the route isn't one it tracks directly.
Getting a live look at bookable space makes Seats.aero competitive with other live award search tools, such as Point.me, PointsYeah, and Roame.Travel.
Related: Point.Me, Roame.Travel, PointsYeah: Which Flight Award Availability Search Tool Is Best?
Routes
The Routes page shows all the routes Seats.aero tracks for each of the 25 frequent flyer programs. You can view the bookable seats for a specific route by clicking “Find availability.” Free subscribers can view results 60 days out, and Pro subscribers can see up to a year in advance.
Compared to Explore, the benefit of using the Routes page is that you can hone your search into one specific route without applying multiple filters. The Routes page is a great place to start your award search if you know where you're departing from and where you're going.
Pro subscribers have extra benefits on the Routes page. Members can request that Seats.aero track new direct or non-stop routes and view statistics on the number of available seats and the average cost by day.
Tools
Searching for coveted award space — think Qatar Airways Qsuite or Lufthansa First Class — presents another challenge for prospective travelers. However, Seats.aero makes it easy to find some of these awards. Under the “Tools” dropdown menu, you'll see several options that are worth your attention:
- Air Canada eUpgrade Finder
- ANA First Class Finder
- Delta One Finder
- Emirates Upgrade Finder
- JAL First Class Finder
- JetBlue Move to Mint Finder
- Lufthansa First Class Finder
- Qatar Qsuites Finder
- United PlusPoints Finder
Utilizing these tools takes the guesswork out of finding specific unicorn awards or locating flights for which you can cash in PlusPoints, eUpgrades, or upgrade/earn miles based on fare class. And like the other Seats.aero pages, you can filter (with a Pro subscription), sort, and keyword search to narrow down the results. Then, click on the information icon to navigate directly to the booking page.
Outside of airline-specific tools, you'll also have a handful of other tools available at your disposal, including:
- Fares Viewer — View the published fares of any scheduled flight from global distribution systems (GDS).
- Fare Class Viewer — See the bookable fare classes of any scheduled flight on supported airlines.
- Seat Map Viewer — View the seat map of any scheduled flight on supported airlines.
- Award Release Dates — Review how far out each carrier releases flights for a given mileage program.
- Great Circle Map — Find the distance between airports (helpful for mileage runs).
- Points or Cash Calculator — Helps you decide which currency to use to book your flight.
- Timatic – Visa Checks — Get up-to-date information on passport, visa, and health requirements.
- Artificial Intelligence (AI) Assistant — Describe your ideal trip and let the AI search for award availability, piece together flights, and create and manage alerts on your behalf.
Creating alerts
Sometimes, the award you're looking for might not be available right now. That's where creating alerts is handy, as you can have Seats.aero notify you via email or SMS (Pro subscribers only) when there's a new bookable seat — either on a one-off or continuous basis.
For example, say you want to check out Qatar Airways Qsuite product between Doha (DOH) and Dallas–Fort Worth (DFW). If you've come up empty with the Qsuite finder, you can set an alert for a specific route and date, or for a particular departure or arrival airport. In this instance, the route and date option is sufficient.
Creating an alert requires filling out a form. You'll specify your preferred contact method, the mileage programs you wish to use, your departure/arrival airport, and the departure date. Pro subscribers can select a range of dates or pick the all-encompassing “any date” option. The last step is to choose your preferred cabin and hit “Create alert.” You'll follow similar steps if you create alerts to or from a specific airport.
And when the alert fires, you can quickly click through the link to book your award. This is a fantastic feature for premium cabin awards, which don't stick around for long. Pro members can view and delete alerts in the “Manage Alerts” subpage.
Additionally, you can create United upgrade alerts if you pay for Pro. These alerts will inform you when United makes select fare classes available — those eligible for upgrades, whether through PlusPoints, mileage upgrades, or saver space.
Final Thoughts
Seats.aero is an invaluable tool for finding award availability. Moreover, it's worth familiarizing yourself with it as you dive deeper into the world of award travel. Even if you seldom book awards, you can still use Seats.aero to simplify the booking process; it'll help you save time and locate your ideal award.
If you sign up for a Pro subscription, you'll have even better tools and functionality at your fingertips. Plus, the tool is easy to navigate once you know the basics. That's valuable in and of itself.
