When it comes to using points and miles, there are good redemptions, better redemptions, and the best. You’re looking at the best of the best.
Whether you want to fly business or first class, or simply travel more for less in economy, there are amazing sweet spots, loopholes, and strategies in this complex world that can unlock some serious savings. And we’ve got some ideas for some of the best redemptions to add to your wish list for this year and beyond.
In no particular order, here are nine of the absolute best deals in points and miles.
Get to Europe for 32K Miles (Or Less) RT … or 81K in Business Class
If flying to Europe is on your list this year or next, you can’t get it for much cheaper than this. For just 32,000 miles and a reasonable cash fee, you can fly from several U.S. cities to Madrid (MAD) and back with Spanish flag carrier Iberia. Sometimes, it’s a fraction of that rate.
The airline’s distance-based award chart means it’s cheapest to hop on the nonstop flight to Madrid from New York City (JFK), Newark (EWR), Boston (BOS), Washington, D.C.-Dulles (IAD), Toronto (YYZ), and even Chicago-O’Hare (ORD). If you time it right during the off-peak travel season – and that’s fairly easy, because 75% of the year is considered off-peak – it’s just 16,000 Iberia Avios each way. Most airlines charge double that or more to get to Europe.
It gets even better. Once or twice a year, Iberia rolls out promos with up to half off (or more!) on these economy class redemptions. Throw in a transfer bonus, and you can book roundtrip flights to Spain for around 10,000 miles and $250 in taxes and fees – sometimes less!
Want your own bed and better meals for the long flight across the Atlantic Ocean? Even after an increase earlier this year, Iberia still offers one of the best deals to fly business class: It starts as low as 40,500 Avios each way, or 81,000 miles for the roundtrip flights in business.
Check out our step-by-step guide to booking business class to Europe – and read our Iberia business class review, too!
Transfer bonuses (like the semi-regular bonuses we see from Chase, Amex, and Capital One) make this incredible deal even better. You can often book this business class seat to Spain for more like 31,000 points each way!
Iberia’s business class is comfortable and solid, with lie-flat seats and great food onboard. And at just 81,000 miles round trip – less than some airlines charge for economy – it’s a steal.
Iberia tacks on some cash fees, but they’re typically far more reasonable than what other major European carriers add to award tickets: just $180 roundtrip or so for economy and $290-ish for business class. No matter how you slice it, it’s an amazing deal.
And it’s gotten even easier to book now, too. British Airways previously eliminated all of its additional taxes and fees from these award tickets, matching what Iberia itself charges.
How to Do It
If you’re wondering how you’re going to get the Iberia miles you need to book one of these deals, don’t sweat it – they couldn’t be easier to earn.
You can get Iberia Avios by transferring them from American Express, Bilt, Chase, Citi, or even Wells Fargo. That means you can easily earn all the miles you need with cards like the *chase sapphire preferred*, the *amex gold*, or *amex platinum*. And that’s true whether you want to fly economy or up in business.
You can also transfer points to British Airways to book these flights from cards like the *venture x*.
The Southwest Companion Pass
OK, so this one isn’t strictly a points and miles redemption. But this buy one, get one pass could be more valuable than them all.
Introducing the Southwest Companion Pass. While many travelers have understandably soured on Southwest after all its negative changes this year, this incredible perk remains unaffected.
It works like this: Once you earn it, the companion pass gets you a free companion – no matter whether you used cash or points to book your ticket … for up to two years. There are no blackout dates and no questions. Just pay the taxes and fees ($5.60 per person on a one-way domestic flight) on each flight and you’re set.
There’s no limit to how many times you can use the Companion Pass. Once you earn it, it’s good for the entire year in which you earned it AND the entire following year. Time it right to earn this pass in early 2026, for example, and you’ll have nearly two full years of BOGO flights.
So it’s not hard to see that this perk could save you hundreds – if not thousands – of dollars on airfare. Whether you’re flying within the continental U.S., heading to the Caribbean, or hopping on a flight to Hawaii, these savings could add up fast.
How to Do It
Unfortunately, it’s gotten harder in recent years to earn the Companion Pass. But that doesn’t mean it’s impossible.
The easiest way is to earn 135,000 Rapid Rewards points with Southwest through a couple of their co-branded credit cards. That, too, has gotten more difficult because Chase now restricts you from holding both Southwest personal credit cards at the same time. So you’ll need to open a personal Southwest card and a business version in order to meet the Companion Pass. Fortunately, holding one of those cards will give you an automatic 10,000-point boost at the start of the year.
Southwest has occasionally offered much easier ways to earn the Companion Pass, like a once-or-twice-a-year opportunity to earn a full year with the Companion Pass from a single credit card bonus. If you want to do it the really hard way, you can also earn the pass by flying with Southwest 100 times in a year on paid fares.
Fly Qatar First Class … for the Price of Business!
Qatar Qsuites business class might get all the love – and understandably so – but there’s something special Qatar Airways First Class on the airline’s Airbus A380 (or the Boeing 777s it’s leasing from Cathay Pacific). Maybe it’s the candlelit caviar dinner and $300-plus bottles of champagne?
Even if you’re content in business class, why not bump up to first with Qatar … without paying another mile? Thanks to a quirk with award pricing when redeeming Qatar (or British Airways) Avios, choosing a segment in Qatar Airways first class on a one-stop itinerary won’t cost you another mile more than booking business class on the same journey.
So while you can fly business class from the U.S. to Doha and onward all the way to the Maldives (MLE) for 85,000 Avios and $250 or so in taxes and fees …
… you can instead book that second segment in first class (sitting in one of Cathay Pacific’s outrageously comfortable first class seats on a leased 777) for just – you guessed it – 85,000 Avios and $250 or so in taxes and fees.
Finding the award availability on both segments can be incredibly tricky, but it can be done. And it works whether you fly a mixture of Qatar business and first class from the U.S. to the Middle East, the Maldives, Southeast Asia, or even all the way to Australia. With that first class ticket in hand, you can break up your journey in the incredible Al Safwa First Class Lounge before boarding the upper deck and sitting in first class.
Qatar’s first class cabin on the A380
How to Do It
You need some Qatar Avios. Lucky you, those are incredibly easy to earn.
For starters, you can transfer Amex Membership Rewards, Capital One, Bilt, and Citi ThankYou Points straight to a Qatar account. But the growing family of airlines using Avios opens up even more doors thanks a unique perk: You can combine Avios between British Airways, Iberia, Aer Lingus, Qatar, and Finnair.
That means you can also transfer Chase points from cards like the *chase sapphire preferred*, then kick them over to Qatar and book this deal. Same goes for transferring Capital One miles from the *venture x* and others.
ANA First Class Using Virgin Atlantic Miles
Even after a nasty devaluation that raised award rates by as much as 42% a while back, this still might just be the single best redemption in the world.
Japan’s ANA is one of the best airlines in the world. And its first class seats are tremendous, with amazing meals, comfortable beds, and top-dollar champagne and drinks. If you manage to snag a flight on one of the airline’s new-and-improved Boeing 777s, you’re in for a treat: ANA calls it “The Suite.”
It just looks expensive, right? But using Virgin Atlantic points, it’s priced more like a business class seat: You can fly from the western U.S. to Tokyo and back for just 145,000 Virgin Atlantic miles, or 170,000 miles from Chicago-O’Hare (ORD) or East Coast cities.
You can even book one-way flights for as low as 72,500 points.
And that’s a serious bargain, as these long flights in ANA first class typically cost more than $20,000 round trip – yes, you read that correctly: $20,000 or more. It makes this easily one of the best deals in the world of points and miles, period.
The trick is finding award availability, as ANA is incredibly stingy with releasing these seats. We sent our Thrifty Traveler Premium members a patented “Nerd Alert” of a deal earlier this year, when we found space for a single traveler on a smattering of dates from San Francisco (SFO) to Tokyo-Narita (NRT). If you’re planning to bring a travel buddy with you, you’ll need to focus on booking within just a few weeks (or even days) of departure.
How to Do It
Read up on everything you need to know to book ANA First Class using Virgin Atlantic miles. And check out our review of the fantastic ANA First Class flight from Chicago-O’Hare (ORD) to Tokyo-Haneda (HND) from a few years ago.
You can get the Virgin points you need by transferring them from Chase, American Express, Capital One, Citi, or Bilt. And if you time it right with a sweet transfer bonus, you could book roundtrip flights for as few as 104,000 points.
Or Biz Class to Tokyo from 100K Miles Roundtrip
Most airlines charge at least 160,000 miles for a roundtrip in business class to Japan. But when booking flights on Japan’s excellent All Nippon Airways with ANA Mileage Club, it starts at just 100,000 miles. For the roundtrip. In business class. That’s not a typo.
That’s up after a devaluation last year … and yet it’s still one of the cheapest ways to get to Japan using miles. The trick is timing it right, as ANA carves out different pricing during low (L), regular (R), and high (H) travel seasons. Even if you can’t make something work in the low season, a regular redemption jumps to just 105,000 miles roundtrip. Unfortunately, that price jumps all the way up to 165,000 in the high season – not nearly as sweet of a deal.
Best of all, a recent change means you can now book one-way awards for half the roundtrip cost – starting at 50,000 ANA miles in business class. This isn’t something ANA had traditionally allowed and was one of the few downsides to booking these rock-bottom fares to Japan.
The only other drawback is that ANA passes on some substantial cash fees. Luckily, those have come down as fuel prices have dropped: It’s currently around $400 roundtrip.
Check out our full guide on how to fly to Japan in business class for the price of economy!
Much like ANA first class, finding the award availability to book these seats even via ANA can be a struggle. Your best bet is almost always booking within just a week or two of departure – especially if you’re aiming to snag a spot in ANA’s “The Room” business class suites. They’re easily some of the best in the world.
How to Do it
There’s one surefire way to earn ANA Mileage Club miles: You want some American Express Membership Rewards points.
ANA is one of the absolute best Amex transfer partners thanks to sweet spots like this one. That means you could pick up either the *amex gold* or *amex platinum* to get the miles you need. One thing to keep in mind: Transfers from Amex to ANA can take up to 48 hours.
But before you transfer anything, search through United.com to find award availability on these ANA flights. Oh, and a tip? Try to find flights from Chicago-O’Hare (ORD), New York City (JFK), or San Francisco (SFO) – that’s where ANA currently flies its incredible new business class suites these days.
Cheaper Roundtrips via JAL: Save 30%+ Miles!
After becoming easier to earn this year, Japan Airlines’ Mileage Bank program is suddenly in the spotlight. Booking a business class suite to Tokyo for just 55,000 miles each way is one thing, but this deal is even more widespread … and arguably more valuable, too.
Booking flights on partner carriers like American Airlines, British Airways, Finnair, and others, you can book some roundtrip awards for significantly less. And that’s true whether you’re flying economy or all the way up in business class.
For example, Japan Airlines charges 60,000 miles each way for a one-way flying American Airlines from Miami (MIA) to Madrid (MAD). That alone is solid, especially with just $5.60 in taxes and fees.
But add a return flight and it’s not 120,000 miles – the roundtrip total drops to just 85,000 miles! That brings the one-way rate to just 42,500 miles each way.
It even works with multi-city and open-jaw redemptions, so you could fly into Spain and jet home from Paris-Charles de Gaulle (CDG) or any other European city for the same roundtrip rate! From Europe to South America to … well, virtually anywhere, you can save some serious miles by booking roundtrip awards instead of one-way flights separately.
And it’s all thanks to a quirk with how Japan Airlines prices these tickets – one you can easily exploit to your advantage.
Like many airline mileage programs, JAL uses a distance-based award chart for these partner award redemptions: The longer your flight, the more miles it may cost. But unlike virtually every other airline, it doesn’t tally each segment separately: It adds the distance together for the final price.
That’s true whether you’re booking Oneworld partner airlines like American Airlines, British Airways, or Finnair, of course … but it also applies to other random partners like JetBlue and even Emirates!
How to Do It
All this hinges on finding award availability that you can actually book. Thus far, it seems like Japan Airlines gets identical inventory to other airlines, so just fire up your favorite website (like American Airlines or Alaska) or enlist the help of an award search tool like Seats.aero to help pinpoint dates you can book.
That said, there are a few quirks you’ll want to be aware of:
- While Bilt points transfer to JAL on a 1:1 basis, Capital One miles transfer on a poorer 2:1.5 ratio.
- If you haven’t already set up a JAL Mileage Bank account, there may be a delay: JAL typically requires accounts to be 60 days old in order to be able to redeem miles. Both Bilt and Capital One have made deals allowing cardholders to redeem their miles within seven days.
- Using JAL miles, you can only book for direct family members (through blood or marriage), so booking for a friend or travel pal is off-limits.
Delta SkyMiles Flash Sales
Is this, pardon the pun, the flashiest redemption in points and miles? No. Are Delta SkyMiles the best for getting crazy value to fly first or business class? Not even close.
But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t amazing deals to be had when using Delta SkyMiles. And one of the best ways to use them is on Delta SkyMiles flash sales, when the airline slashes award rates on select flights. Sometimes the airline advertises these sales, and other times we just discover them and send them to our Thrifty Traveler Premium members.
Here’s a taste of some of the absolute best flash sales we’ve seen over the years:
- Nationwide flights to Europe as low as 19,000 SkyMiles … roundtrip!
- 10,000 SkyMiles from Seattle (SEA) to Hawaii roundtrip!
- … or nationwide flights to Hawaii from just 14,000 SkyMiles total
- An unreal sale to Auckland (AKL) in New Zealand as low as 37,000 SkyMiles roundtrip!
- 85,000 SkyMiles to fly Delta One to Japan, South Korea, or Taiwan
- Costa Rica for 11,000 SkyMiles roundtrip!
- The brand-new route to Hong Kong (HKG) in Delta One for just 93,000 SkyMiles
- Fly Delta One Suites to Europe and back for just 98,000 SkyMiles
- Record-low pricing to Taipei and back: just 25,400 SkyMiles!
Get the heads up on SkyMiles flash sales like this one with Thrifty Traveler Premium!
These deals and the constant onslaught of others like them aren’t top-dollar redemptions, by any means. But you will never see rates this cheap to travel near or far on any other airline.
How to Do It
You’ll want some Delta SkyMiles to book these flash sales. And you’re in luck.
Delta occasionally rolls out bigger bonuses on its suite of co-branded American Express cards. Those are worth waiting for if you’re in the market for some SkyMiles. But there’s another way…
Delta is an Amex transfer partner, and it’s one of our favorites. That means you can earn some Amex Membership Rewards points from cards like the *amex gold* or *amex platinum*, then transfer them to your Delta SkyMiles account when you see a SkyMiles flash sale you like.
Book Delta Flights for Less via Air France!
Unless you score a killer SkyMiles flash sale, Delta award rates are often exorbitant: 100,000 miles for a roundtrip to Europe … or 400,000-plus in business class.
There’s a better way: Use Air France/KLM Flying Blue miles instead.
For years, Virgin Atlantic’s Flying Club was the best workaround to fly Delta for a fraction of the SkyMiles Delta itself charges. But after a slew of devaluations – including killing off beloved 50,000-point Delta One redemptions to Europe – Air France/KLM’s Flying Blue program is the way to go to book Delta flights for less these days.
And there are substantial savings to be had. Take, for example, this Delta One redemption from Boston (BOS) to Lisbon (LIS). Delta is charging 265,000 SkyMiles – ouch.
But you can book that exact same flight through Air France/KLM for just 59,000 miles each way – less than a quarter of the cost!
There can be big savings on economy redemptions, too. Case in point: Delta is charging more than 120,000 SkyMiles to fly from Minneapolis-St. Paul (MSP) to Honolulu (HNL) … in basic economy, to boot. But you can book that exact same route for less than half the miles via Air France instead: Just 51,000 total. And for fewer miles, you still get a (far superior) main cabin economy fare, meaning you can pick your seats for free.
How to Do It
For the best way to book Delta flights, you’ll need some Air France/KLM miles first. Lucky you: They couldn’t possibly be easier to earn.
Air France/KLM partners with all the major credit card companies, so you can turn points from virtually any bank straight into Flying Blue miles. Better yet, frequent transfer bonuses to Air France mean you may need to transfer fewer points to get what you need to book those Delta flights.
Finding availability to book those flights can be a bit harder – especially if you’re banking on booking a Delta One business class flight abroad. But again, we send Thrifty Traveler Premium members alerts anytime something pops up, handling the hard part for you.
Fortunately, Air France/KLM made it much easier recently by expanding a handy award calendar trick to work for Delta and other SkyTeam partner carriers. That means you can quickly pull up a month-by-month look at availability to zero in on dates where these cheaper Delta awards are bookable.
Biz Class to Europe for Less via Alaska Points … with a Connection
A year and change ago, we discovered a quirk with Alaska’s incredibly valuable Atmos Rewards program that could help you book a business class seat across the pond for fewer miles. Fast forward to present day, and this workaround is still kicking.
Most business class fares between the U.S. and Europe now clock in at 55,000 Atmos Rewards each way – or more flying to and from the West Coast. But if you add a connection in economy in the States or on the other side of the pond, you can cut the final price as low as 45,000 points each way.
So while booking Aer Lingus business class from Minneapolis-St. Paul (MSP) to Dublin (DUB) will cost you 55,000 points …
… tack on a connection to Paris-Charles de Gaulle (CDG) – or virtually anywhere else in Western Europe, for that matter – and the total cost drops to 45,000 points. Thanks to Alaska’s incredible free stopover feature, you can even spend a few days (or a week or more) in Dublin before continuing onward to Paris for that same 45,000-point rate!
It works on the other side of the pond with carriers like American Airlines, too – and not just with a domestic connection in coach, but even if you’re flying first class before plopping down in that lie-flat seat across the Atlantic. And while it won’t bring rates under 50,000 points each way, this connection trick sometimes works on longer transatlantic flights from the West Coast, too: You can price them out for as low as 55,000 points instead of 70,000 or so.
Saving an extra 10,000 to 15,000 miles when flying business class is huge – especially with how much harder it can be to earn Alaska miles compared to the likes of Delta or United. Most importantly, this quirk explicitly contradicts Alaska’s own award charts and even its published rules.
So take advantage while you can!
How to Do It
This cheaper-awards-with-a-connection quirk can be hit-or-miss. It’ll take some trial and error to find those 45,000-point business class awards to Europe.
Regardless, you’ll need some Alaska Atmos Rewards points to make it a reality. You’ve got some options, including:
- Flying Alaska, duh. While actually booking and taking flights isn’t the best way to rack up miles on most airlines anymore, Alaska is unique in that it still awards miles based upon how far you fly – and will start giving travelers more options for how they earn miles starting next year.
- Alaska has a suite of different credit cards that routinely roll out bigger welcome bonuses … none bigger than on the new Atmos Rewards Summit Visa Infinite® (for full disclosure, this is not an affiliate link)
- You can also transfer Bilt Rewards straight to Alaska Atmos on a 1:1 basis
Bottom Line
This list is far from exhaustive. There are dozens more amazing ways that you can use points and miles to see more of the world – or see it in style – and save a boatload of money in the process.