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Like any skill, booking award flights requires a lot of practice before it becomes second nature. If you've never booked an award flight before — or think you're at risk of missing a step — this post is for you.
Here's a step-by-step guide walking you through the entire process of booking an award flight.
Step 1: Pick a Destination
Choosing a destination is sometimes the most challenging part. To save us some time, we'll make the call.
Let's say we want to go from sunny SoCal to Hawaii's pristine beaches — flying From Los Angeles (LAX) to Honolulu (HNL).
Which airlines fly to Honolulu?
Determining which airlines fly between your intended origin and destination (with or without stopping) is important. This information will prove helpful as you decide which program you should book with and whether or not you can leverage any airline partnerships.
Not every U.S. domestic airline flies to the Hawaiian capital, but most do. To gather the complete list of airlines that frequent HNL, you can scope out airline route maps on their respective websites, visit the airport's webpage, or pull up Daniel K. Inouye International Airport's Wikipedia page. You also can visit Flight Connections to see your options.
After doing some research, you'll find that the following domestic airlines fly into Honolulu:
- Alaska Airlines
- American Airlines
- Delta Air Lines
- Hawaiian Airlines
- Southwest Airlines
- United Airlines
Step 2: Take Inventory of Your Points and Miles
Fairly regularly, we'll update our post on the best points and miles for free flights to Hawaii.
What's helpful about this specific post is the table showing the frequent flyer programs you can use to book a flight to Hawaii (notice the similarities to the list of airlines that fly into HNL), the “starting at” award price, and which programs you can transfer points from. While it's not an exhaustive list, you can find the same table below.
| Rewards Program | Operating Airline | Economy (Round-Trip) | Business/First (Round-Trip) | Transfer Points From |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Turkish Miles & Smiles | United Airlines | 20,000 | 30,000/ 40,000 | • Capital One miles • Citi ThankYou® Rewards • Marriott Bonvoy • Bilt Rewards |
| Southwest Rapid Rewards | Southwest Airlines | 12,500+ | N/A | • Chase Ultimate Rewards • Marriott Bonvoy |
| Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer | Alaska Airlines | 26,000-28,000 | 95,000–106,000 | • American Express Membership Rewards • Brex Cash • Capital One miles • Chase Ultimate Rewards • Citi ThankYou Rewards • Marriott Bonvoy |
| Korean Air SKYPASS | Delta Air Lines | 25,000 | 45,000 | • N/A |
| British Airways Executive Club | American Airlines, Alaska Airlines | 40,000(+) | 100,000(+) | • American Express Membership Rewards • Bilt Rewards • Capital One miles • Chase Ultimate Rewards • Marriott Bonvoy |
| Korean Air SKYPASS | Alaska Airlines, Hawaiian Airlines | 30,000 | 60,000 | • Marriott Bonvoy |
| Air France/KLM Flying Blue | Delta Air Lines | 35,000 | 60,000 | • American Express Membership Rewards • Bilt Rewards • Brex Cash • Capital One miles • Chase Ultimate Rewards • Citi ThankYou Rewards • Marriott Bonvoy |
| Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer | United Airlines | 39,000 | 78,000 | • American Express Membership Rewards • Brex Cash • Capital One miles • Chase Ultimate Rewards • Citi ThankYou Rewards • Marriott Bonvoy |
| Hawaiian Airlines HawaiianMiles | Hawaiian Airlines | 40,000(+) | 80,000(+) | • American Express Membership Rewards • Bilt Rewards • Marriott Bonvoy |
| United MileagePlus | United Airlines | 20,000+ | 80,000++ | • Bilt Rewards • Chase Ultimate Rewards • Marriott Bonvoy |
| American Airlines AAdvantage | American Airlines | 25,000+ | 80,000++ | • Bilt Rewards • Marriott Bonvoy |
| Delta SkyMiles | Delta Air Lines | 17,000+ | 80,000++ | • American Express Membership Rewards • Marriott Bonvoy |
| Alaska Mileage Plan | Alaska Airlines | 20,000+ | 40,000+ | • Marriott Bonvoy |
| Qatar Airways Privilege Club | American Airlines, Alaska Airlines | 32,000 | 86,000 | • American Express Membership Rewards • Citi ThankYou® Rewards • Marriott Bonvoy |
As you scroll through the table, think about what points you have. Are they transferable points, or are they miles associated with one of the frequent flyer programs? This information will provide a helpful baseline when you decide which program to book with.
For instance, if you only have American Express Membership Rewards, you'll want to focus on the programs that you can transfer these points to.
Continuing with our example, we'll keep it simple and say we've got a balance of 30,000 Amex Membership Rewards — more than enough to book our roundtrip ticket between LAX and HNL.
Step 3: Find a Redemption
Now that we know our mileage balance, the next step is looking for a redemption. It's time to put the miles to good use!
Briefly adding to our example trip specifics, we'll plan to fly in February 2024. Generally, the more flexible your dates are, the better your chance of finding cheaper award fares, more availability, and more reasonable flight times.
In our example, I've got a balance of 30,000 American Express Membership Rewards — so what can I do with those?
With Membership Rewards, I can transfer these points to the following airline loyalty programs:
Many of those airline loyalty programs can be used for flights to Hawaii, which is both a positive and a negative. On the plus side, you can compare prices across carriers to get the best award fare. On the negative side, very few people have the time or patience to run award searches through over a dozen programs.
Here's where an award search tool will come in handy.
Use an award search tool to make your search easier
Utilizing an award search tool will make your life easier as you search for the best deal. There are lots of tools out there, which means the competition is high — and some of these are free.
When using a tool like Point.me, Roame.travel, AwardLogic, or PointsYeah, you'll get to plug your trip details in and select the credit card point currencies you have. When the results roll in, you'll see itineraries that are bookable with the points you have — an absolute time-saver.
Revisiting our example, we conducted a few searches across award tools for LAX to HNL flights for our February 6–10, 2024, trip. Here's what we found:
| Transfer Amex points at a 1:1 ratio to: | To fly on: | At this round-trip price: |
|---|---|---|
| Delta SkyMiles | Delta Air Lines | 17,000 SkyMiles |
| Air Canada Aeroplan | United Airlines | 26,000 Aeroplan points |
| Iberia Plus (Avios) | American Airlines | 26,000 Avios |
| Avianca LifeMiles | United Airlines | 30,000 LifeMiles |
| Air France/KLM Flying Blue | Delta Air Lines | 35,000 Flying Blue Miles |
| Hawaiian Airlines HawaiianMiles | Hawaiian Airlines | 40,000 HawaiianMiles |
That first Delta SkyMiles option looks pretty good. We'll pick that one since it's the cheapest.
Step 4: Book the Flight
Let's go ahead and navigate to the Delta website to confirm that the itinerary is available. Especially if you use an award search tool, this is a quality assurance step to ensure you don't end up transferring points to an airline loyalty program for an award that might have disappeared. You want to ensure the seats are actually available at the price you want to pay before moving points to an airline program.
On Delta's page, make sure to check “Shop with Miles.”
In this case, we're safe. The 17,000-SkyMiles itinerary for the February 6–10 trip is available to book.
The next step is transferring your American Express Membership Rewards to Delta SkyMiles. For the exact steps on transferring, we've assembled a handy guide: How to transfer Amex points.
You can transfer Membership Rewards to Delta SkyMiles at a 1:1 ratio, which means you'll need to transfer exactly 17,000 Amex points to Delta. The best part? I'll only use about half of my original 30,000 Membership Rewards balance.
For most airline partners, transfers occur instantly. If you've already logged in to your SkyMiles account, you might need to log out and log back in to see the new balance. And from there, you'll go through the steps to book the flight.
Add your details like normal, use a travel rewards card to pay the taxes and fees, and wait for the confirmation to show up in your inbox. In most cases, it's that simple.
Final Thoughts
Booking award flights might take some practice until it becomes second nature, but it's a skill worth learning if you want to use points and miles to meet your travel goals.
The number of ways you can book a flight may seem overwhelming, but using an award search tool can make the process much easier and save you a lot of time. If you follow these steps, you'll be well on your way to booking your own award flight.
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