Award Tickets: Types and Levels

Saver vs Standard Awards explained

Earlier, award bookings used to be simple. Airlines published Award charts, and the prices were fixed. So travelers had to just go to these charts to look for seat availability and book. Though many airlines still function the same, dynamic pricing has changed the game for major carriers. Here, availability is not the only concern, pricing also matters. Although different types of award pricing might seem complex at first glance, once you have a clear understanding of them, your award travel becomes much easier. This blog will break it all down in a practical way.

Saver-Level Award Tickets

Saver-level is the traditional form of pricing where award prices are fixed. Either there is availability or there isn’t. And if it is available, it is priced according to the award chart, and that cost doesn’t change. This pricing is still maintained by many frequent flyer programs as this gets the most value off miles. 

However, there are some exceptions. For example, United Airlines has saver-level pricing and standard-level (explained below). But they do not publish award charts. Which means their saver-level prices also vary. But these awards will still be available and bookable.

Standard-Level Award Tickets

Standard-level pricing typically costs 1.5 to 3 times more than saver prices. At times, it can cost way more miles than this when you book a standard award ticket on the last seat on a flight. As it looks, it is quite not worth booking a standard award ticket as it is really expensive and requires lots of miles. But the thing is, standard award tickets have more availability precisely because they are pricier.

Most airlines used to have charts for standard award tickets, but now they don’t because the prices vary from time to time.

Even though standard awards are generally expensive, at times they do offer prices nearly equivalent to saver award tickets. In such cases, opting for standard ward tickets is recommended.

Revenue-Based Award Tickets

Revenue-based award tickets AKA Dynamic award tickets, require miles that keep on varying according to the price of the ticket in cash. So if the cash price of the ticket goes up, so will the miles and vice versa. Frequent flyer programs that follow this dynamic pricing tries to make 1 mile worth $0.01. This means 10,000 miles worth $100 in cash.

There wouldn’t be much value in these programs (exceptions are there) because the value of miles would be fixed and unchangeable.

Partner Programs and Award Availability

Airlines form partnerships through alliances and individual partners as well. This makes redemptions broader. The high-value redemption opportunities created through these partnerships are called “Sweet Spots” in award travel. Most airlines still publish the traditional saver-level award seats that partner programs can access. However, these Saver seats may be eliminated from their own airlines. Confused? Let me explain with an example:

American Airlines eliminated saver awards for AAdvantage members (AA Frequent Flyer Program) on their own flights. But AA still releases Saver seats to partners like British Airways Executive club or Alaska Mileage Plan with the use of specific booking classes.

Let’s look into some real examples of booking saver and standard-level award tickets.

Velocity Frequent Flyer (Virgin Australia)

Imagine paying over a million points for a ticket! Sounds crazy right? This is common while searching for a business class to US routes. So, here you have to aim for a Reward Seat rather than the Any Seat.

The example below shows the difference clearly:

The difference of Reward and Any seat here is 136,500 points! (Please keep in mind that this could change during peak times like holiday seasons)

Cathay Pacific Asia Miles (Cathay Pacific)

Asia Miles offers three levels of award seat levels: Standard, Choice, and Tailored.

Go for Standard awards for Saver-level rates, but Choice is also an option if you must take the flight.

Tailored awards are insanely more expensive than Choice. If it is really necessary that you take this flight with miles, go for it as a last resort.

Emirates Skywards (Emirates)

Emirates offers fixed-price Classic Rewards in all classes (limited saver availability). It also allows you to top up commercial fares with its Cash+Miles option.

Etihad Guest (Etihad Airways)

Open Seat converts ticket price to Miles. Hence, it changes only according to the demand of the ticket. While Guest Seats cost a distance-based fixed amount.

Open Seat is usually 3 times more expensive than Guest Seat.

Do you see how long it can take to choose the most suitable plan for award travel? You have to visit multiple airline websites to check their programs and find out which one is the to redeem the points and miles you have accumulated.

Not anymore. FlightPoints is the best award flight search tool that will help you solve these unending searches.

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1. Search 25+ loyalty programs instantly. FlightPoints searches many airlines simultaneously by providing real-time seat availability. Thereby eliminating the need of logging into individual airline websites.
2. Compare Points. FlightPoints helps in streamlining the cheapest to best plans to avail your points. It compares the lowest point requirements and helps in finding the best way to use your miles.
3. Real-time availability search. FlightPoints show real-time available seats that are bookable at the time of search or as per requirement instead of outdated or static data.
4. Alerts and notifications. You can set alerts and personalized notifications for when a seat is available for a specific route, so that you never miss out a deal before the seats sell out.
5. Smart insights. FlightPoints give a comparison of economy, business, and first-class awards side by side making it easier for the users to choose the most suitable plan.

Award Travel will be made much easier with a tool like FlightPoints. With the miles and points you have earned, you’re just a few clicks away from your dream destination, or destinations!

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