How to Get an International Frequent Flyer Ticket During High Season

One of the biggest myths of using frequent flyer miles to travel internationally is the perception that you must travel during low-season to find a seat. While it is true that airlines usually set aside fewer seats for frequent flyer award travel when the likelihood is higher that paying passengers will want to purchase those seats, there are some techniques you can use to maximize your chances of getting those seats for your vacation.

EditSteps

Book early. If you are planning to travel during high season, call the airline's frequent flyer desk or visit their web site to book that award travel as early as possible. Remember, everybody else wants to visit Paris when it is nice in the summer, rather than when it's freezing in winter. You can book the travel as much as a year in advance, and change dates later on, usually without penalties or fees.

If you don't succeed at first, try again and again. Availability of seats for frequent flyer awards changes every day, sometimes more than once a day. There's no limit to the number of times you can call the airline's frequent flyer award desk, or check their web site, to see if seats have become available. It can take weeks sometimes to succeed, but you have to be persistent.

Explore alternate routings. The folks who want to pay to get to a particularly interesting place for their summer trip will want to get there as quickly and directly as possible. When you check for availability, look for the weird routes and possibly two stops or more instead of direct flights or one stop. For example, if you want to visit Amsterdam, consider alternate routes through cities like Zurich.

Consider long and/or overnight layovers. If you can't get to where you want to go in consecutive segments, consider staying overnight at an en-route destination. Some hotels at major airports, particularly in Europe, have special rates for customers who want to nap during the day between flights but not stay overnight.

Sometimes landing short can be loads of fun. Consider the Amsterdam example given above. Finding a flight that gets you to Schiphol Airport can be very difficult during the summer, but flights to Brussels are easier to get because it is not as big a destination as Amsterdam. You will find, however, that a bit of research uncovers the little known fact that you can catch a train for the relatively short trip from Brussels to Amsterdam directly below the airport terminal, and it drops you off at Amsterdam's Centraal train station! From there you can get to anywhere in Amsterdam on the street-level trains or taxis. (Besides, Brussels is a very interesting city as well!)

Consider bartering. If you can't find award tickets to the place you want to go, perhaps you can find someone willing to buy the miles from you so you can buy paid tickets!

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Some airline web sites will severely limit the partner airlines with whom you can make award travel reservations. American Airlines' web site only allows online reservations for British Airways and Alaskan Airlines. Call the airline's frequent flyer desk to get access to the other partner airlines associated with OneWorld, Star Alliance, etc.

EditWarnings

Be wary of "fees". Some airlines will charge you exorbitant fees for frequent flyer travel, to the point that it may be cheaper to buy coach tickets than fly with the award tickets. A good example of this is British Airways -- they will add several hundred in fees on top of the required miles on just about every flight, and call them "taxes" when in reality they are trying to get you to pay fuel surcharges that should be classified as "cost of doing business" on award travel.