You’ve used your credit cards wisely and saved up a big stash of points and miles. You know there’s a way to maximize the value of your hard-earned rewards balance, but you’re at a loss as to where to begin. That’s where award booking services come in.
An award booking service is a company that helps people redeem frequent flyer miles or travel rewards points to book travel.
These companies don’t do anything that an individual couldn’t do on their own, but because the professionals spend all day booking travel with points and miles, they’re likely to know a few tricks that can save their customers time, money, points and miles.
An award booking service might be right for those whose frequent flyer miles or bank rewards points collect virtual dust in online accounts. They might feel overwhelmed by all of the options available for redeeming miles or get frustrated when they can’t find what they’re looking for at a reasonable price.
What Can Award Booking Services Help With?
Award booking services can help find the best way to use miles for a trip. For example:
- Luxury experience. If I want the most comfortable or luxurious experience for my trip, an award booker should be able to advise me on which airlines offer the best service and how I can use my miles to fly with them.
- Traveling with family. If I’m traveling with my family, they can help me find flights that have multiple seats available (or flights departing and arriving at similar times, if I don’t mind splitting up the group for a few hours).
- Complex itinerary. If I want to book a complex itinerary that stops in multiple cities or countries—or even goes all the way around the world—a booker can help figure out which combination of destinations (and in which order) gives me the best experience for the fewest number of miles.
While different services may specialize in different mileage programs, services exist that work with just about any airline loyalty program or with flexible rewards programs like American Express Membership Rewards, Capital One Miles, Chase Ultimate Rewards and Citi ThankYou Points.
Featured Travel Rewards Cards
How Do Award Booking Services Work?
While different companies use slightly different business models, typically the process starts with giving a booker information about a trip—a desired destination and dates—and what kinds of miles and/or points are ready to be used. Some services can help narrow down the options for those who just want to get away and might not have a certain place in mind; others will only help search for deals to specific destinations.
Generally, customers of award bookers should expect to pay a fixed fee based on the complexity of an itinerary: A multi-stop or around-the-world itinerary in first or business class is likely to cost more than a roundtrip ticket in economy. Many services will charge a nonrefundable fee for initial searching since that’s often the most time-consuming part of the process: Some will deduct that fee from the total cost if you ultimately book an itinerary they found, while others simply have separate pricing structures for searching and booking.
After receiving a request, a service will generally reply with relative speed—many aim for a reply within 24 to 48 hours—with some initial options based on the request and provide options for how to proceed. Once a customer selects an itinerary, they’ll either walk the customer through the booking process or log directly into the customer’s account and book the ticket.
Who Should Use an Award Booking Service?
Like a travel agent or a financial advisor, an award booking service allows customers to pay for someone else’s expertise instead of spending a lot of time doing research about the intricacies of airline partnerships and trying to understand complicated pricing structures for redemptions. This can help avoid expensive mistakes on the part of the consumer. It also saves travelers from having to run multiple searches to find which airlines have availability for desired travel dates.
Often the best deals can be found by booking tickets through the relatively obscure mileage programs of foreign airlines, which can be challenging to navigate and often involve multiple phone calls to agents in another country.
It definitely doesn’t make sense to use an award booking service every time you book a ticket. In most cases, booking a fairly straightforward trip through an award booking service—like a domestic flight or an international trip in coach—won’t yield enough savings to offset the fees involved.
What Should I Look for in an Award Booking Service?
The features consumers should look for in an award booking service will vary a bit depending on individual circumstances. For example, if I have miles and points in a variety of different loyalty programs, then I might look for someone who specializes in travel to the region I want to go to and use all those points.
On the other hand, if my miles or points are mostly in a single program, I might want to work with someone who has significant expertise with using that particular program to book award tickets, since they might know how to snag hard-to-find awards that others may miss.
Many award booking companies have experience working with all kinds of points and miles, so it may be better to compare services based on other factors.
Look for services that offer a satisfaction guarantee: While customers should always expect to pay something for the time a booker spends researching an itinerary, the most consumer-friendly services won’t charge a booking fee if they aren’t able to find an itinerary that meets a customer’s needs. Also compare pricing structures from different companies—some may offer discounts beyond the first passenger or for multiple flight bookings in the same itinerary.
What Red Flags Should I Watch Out For?
Be careful about handing over usernames and passwords for frequent flyer accounts. While it makes sense for those who want the service to book the tickets directly, that’s also all the information a shady operator would need to steal miles. For those who do pay a service to both find and book tickets, make sure it’s someone trustworthy and only share credentials after agreeing on the desired itinerary. Change passwords after booking is complete.
Bottom Line
For those who typically use miles for basic trips (especially in coach) or use straightforward programs, an award booking service probably won’t be warranted. But when looking for complex trips and detailed itineraries, it can be (and often is) worth it to pay an expert to help maximize the value of miles and points.
