Where are the sweet spots in an award chart?

At a glance#

Why award charts are uneven#

Hardly any term in the loyalty world is used as often and explained as rarely. A sweet spot is not an insider tip but the result of a calculation anyone can do, and it lasts exactly as long as the underlying chart stays unchanged.

An award chart groups routes into zones and assigns each zone a price. Inside a zone every route costs the same regardless of length, and imbalances grow out of that simplification. At the upper edge of a zone sits a long route at the price of a short one. That is a sweet spot in its plainest form.

History adds to the effect. Zones are drawn along countries and regions, and those lines rarely follow the geography of flight routes.

Partner pricing widens the gaps further. Every programme sets its own prices for partner flights, so the same route can cost three different amounts in three programmes. And then there is inertia: charts are revised rarely while cash prices change daily, and that difference in pace alone creates places where points cost conspicuously little.

Knowing those causes makes the search targeted. Looking for sweet spots means looking for places where a chart and reality have drifted apart, and promotions have nothing to do with it.

Where to find them#

In partner programmes#

Three places hold most of the finds: partner programmes with their own charts, the edges of zones, and the gaps between cabins. All three can be searched systematically.

An award on one flight can frequently be booked through several programmes, and the price follows the programme booking it. The airline flying it has no say. The most important rule of the search follows from that: with a particular flight in mind, check the charts of every programme listing it as a partner, as partner awards describes.

The spread between the most and the least expensive programme is regularly substantial. It arises without any effort by the traveller and purely out of the chart.

Not every programme carries every airline as a partner. The partner list is the first filter of the search and sits in each programme’s own overview.

Whether a programme uses a fixed chart for partner flights at all is worth checking too. Some price their own flights dynamically and partner flights by chart, and that is where the most reliable spots sit. Partner charts are published, so they can be laid side by side in a few minutes; the effort falls once per route and holds until a programme changes its chart.

At the edges of zones#

Zones end at national borders, and national borders do not end where flight routes do. A destination at the outer edge of a cheap zone is the classic find.

Stopovers are worth a look as well. A route with a stop inside the same zone frequently costs the same as the direct flight, as stopovers and open jaws describes.

Long regional routes inside a large zone offer another angle. A long flight within one continent that sits in the same zone as a short hop is a place where distance is not reflected in the price.

Between cabins and across regions#

Cabins deserve a look of their own. In some charts the gap between economy and business is small, and then the higher cabin is where the value lies. Multi-segment trips can pay off too: some charts price a journey with several legs as one award, and the price per leg then falls considerably. Where that is possible it is usually the single largest advantage a chart offers. Programmes outside your own region cut their zones from a different perspective, and what looks expensive from one continent can be cheap from another.

Worked example: one route, three programmes#

Take a long-haul flight that can be booked as an award through three programmes, compared with the operating airline’s own dynamic pricing and with a cash ticket.

Partner programme B is the most common trap. A low points price with a high cash outlay is a partial purchase dressed up as a bargain.

Partner programme A shows what a genuine find looks like. A markedly lower points price at the same cash outlay is the only case that needs no weighing at all, and the same programme’s higher cabin is the most underrated line in the table: where the step up is small, that is where the value sits.

Under dynamic pricing the points price follows the cash price, which removes the basis for outliers entirely. That alone explains why sweet spots are becoming rarer.

Without the cash price no points price can be judged. Looking it up takes a single minute, as points or cash describes.

How to search yourself#

Rebuilding the comparison for your own route means adding a column for the value per point. That number makes the options comparable, because it puts points and cash into one unit.

The method needs no special knowledge, and a plain spreadsheet is enough: one row per route, one column per programme, one for the surcharge and one for the value per point. Take a route, note the points price in every available programme and divide it by the cash price. Whatever stands out is a candidate. A route where one programme charges half of what another does is a place where the chart is lagging.

Next comes the surcharge check, which decides whether a candidate becomes a genuine find.

Availability comes last. A cheap chart entry without free award seats is a theoretical figure, as partner awards describes for the search itself.

Fix the route, list the programmes, enter price and surcharge, then check availability. Keeping that order avoids hunting for awards that do not exist. Anchoring the search to a period helps as well. Chart prices are fixed, but availability swings across the year, and a spot is only useful when it is bookable in the weeks you can travel.

A short note after each search pays off. Recording which programme held the best price for which route saves the work next time and makes a chart change obvious immediately. Flexible planners keep a short list of two or three spots that match the balance on hand and review it once a year.

Why they disappear#

Programmes revise their charts, and every revision smooths the outliers. The most conspicuous sweet spots are the first to go.

The shift to dynamic pricing does the rest. Where the award price follows the cash price, there are no longer any places where the two diverge.

Attention shortens a spot’s life as well. One that is written about widely gets used more and comes to the programme’s notice faster, which is why the best-known sweet spots are usually the shortest-lived. A programme can also leave a chart untouched and simply release fewer award seats, and the effect for travellers is the same.

Such changes are rarely announced far ahead. A chart can be replaced from one day to the next, as miles expiry describes for the related case. Finding a spot with availability therefore means booking immediately, because a started but unfinished booking offers no protection.

When it is not worth searching#

The search costs time, and in some situations that time buys nothing at all. Searching is wasted effort here:

• In programmes with dynamic pricing. The points price follows the cash price and outliers do not arise.
• With high surcharges. A good points price with a large cash outlay is not an advantage.
• Without award availability on the route. The best chart is useless without a seat.
• On short routes. The absolute gain is small and out of proportion to the effort.
• When collecting speculatively. Saving for years towards one spot risks it disappearing before the booking, leaving points in a programme that is otherwise of little use.
• With a small balance. A sweet spot saves a share, and a share of little is little. The effort pays from a size at which the saving carries another trip.
• For travellers tied to school holidays. Award seats are scarce in peak periods, and a cheap chart entry without a seat is worthless. Then availability comes first and price second.
• For families. An award for four people needs four seats on one flight, and the well-known spots almost never have them. The second-best chart with good availability is nearly always the better choice.

What a find means for planning#

A sweet spot changes the order of planning. Instead of choosing a destination and then looking for awards, you find a cheap place and plan the trip around it.

For many travellers that is the wrong order. With a fixed destination, the sensible move is to book the best available award to it and leave the outlier hunting alone. A flexible traveller works the other way round: the points price decides the destination, and the value received is markedly higher.

Both approaches are sound. Choosing between them is a question of your own flexibility, not of cleverness. Hunting for sweet spots is methodical work with a clear procedure and a limited shelf life, compared across every programme listing the flight as a partner award. It pays for flexible travellers with large balances and hardly at all for someone flying to one fixed place once a year.

The most common mistakes#

• Searching only your own programme. Every partner programme carrying the flight has its own price, and the cheapest is rarely the one you already know.
• Ignoring the surcharge. A low points price with a high cash outlay is a partial purchase, so the surcharge decides whether a find is one.
• Saving towards one specific spot. It can vanish before the booking, and the points stay behind.
• Judging without the cash price. No points price means anything until it is set against what the same seat costs in cash.
• Assuming availability. A chart says nothing about free seats; only the search does.
• Searching under dynamic pricing. When award prices track cash prices, there are no outliers to find.

Related topics#

• Partner awards
• Points or cash
• Hotel award categories
• Stopovers and open jaws
• Miles expiry
• Transferable points