Devaluations are never good.
For one they make us spend more miles for award flights, and two they put me to work updating the airline award chart comparison infographics! Over the last year we saw a handful of devaluations including United, Delta (2x? 3x?), American Airlines, and US Airways.
I have updated the airline award chart comparisons to reflect all current award charts and have added a few new features. In the update I’ve included United’s partner award chart on the infographic and as well as off-peak pricing in the tables.
You can support Well Traveled Mile by applying for Credit Cards here or shopping through our Amazon affiliate link. Thank you for the support!
Hopefully these will serve as a quick way to look up award prices between the top airline programs and help you decide which miles you both want to earn and redeem for specific awards.
Each airline program has a sweet spot on its award chart making award charts much more valuable than others. It’s evident that both Alaska Airlines and US Airways have among the more competitive awards charts, but each can offer value depending on the region you want to fly to.
I only looked at saver award charts (who wants to pay double for a standard award?) and compared economy, Business, and First class award prices on the major airline programs including United, American Airlines, US Airways, Delta, Lufthansa, British Airways and Alaska Airlines.
You will be able to find these charts as a quick reference on the sidebar and also within the ‘Travel Resources’ tab on the menu.
Which Miles Offer the Cheapest Award Flights
How to use the charts and infographs:
- Easily compare which airline miles offer a significantly lower award price to a region
- Depending on what region you want to travel to you can earn specific miles that have the cheapest award prices
Airline Award Charts:
- United
- American Airlines (oneworld partner award chart)
- Delta
- US Airways
- Lufthansa Miles & More
- Alaska Airlines
- British Airways
A few details about the charts and graphics:
- All prices are for Saver award prices and are in thousands of miles.
- All awards are priced out to originate from the continental US.
- Each airline has different definitions of regions the charts are based on United award chart regions. If there are any omissions or errors please let me know!
- All prices are round trip awards. US Airways and Delta don’t allow one-way awards for half price, but United, American, British Airways, Lufthansa, Alaska all do.
- All prices shown are the cheapest award price option including partner airlines offered year round (off-peak is included in the table, but not on the infograph).
- For American Airlines or US Airways peak pricing was used to keep things consistent between award pricing among other airlines.
Economy Award Chart Comparison
To view a larger version of the infographic click HERE
To download a pdf of the table click HERE
Quick notes:
- American Airlines and US Airways off-peak awards are included in the chart, but not in the infographic. Off-peak awards are by far the cheapest price tier to many destinations if you can travel during the time frame that they’re offered.
- Alaska Airlines miles offer exceptional value awards to almost all regions.
Business Class Award Chart Comparison
To view a larger version of the infographic click HERE
To download a pdf of the table click HERE
Quick notes:
- British Airways is great for shorter flights including Hawaii and Mexico (depending on US city of origin).
- There are huge price differences to some destinations and choosing the right airline to fly with can save you thousands of points.
- Alaska and US Airways have the most competitive award charts and offer some of the best prices to many international regions.
- Lufthansa has the best price for domestic award flights.
First Class Award Chart Comparison
To view a larger version of the infographic click HERE
To download a pdf of the table click HERE
Quick notes:
- Delta planes do not have a First Class (they do have Business Elite) cabin and Delta miles cannot be used to book a First Class award on a partner airline.
- US Airways has the most competitive First Class award chart, but Alaska Airlines is not far behind and also offers great value.
- United First Class awards on partner airlines cost significantly more than most other programs, however Lufthansa can also be pricey depending on the region.
Well that’s that, hopefully you can find these useful and if you have any other ideas for inforgraphics drop me a comment below!
Last Thing: These can take a lot of time to research, create, and revise, etc. If you enjoyed them or find the useful please consider sharing this post or graphics! Thanks!
✈ If you enjoyed this post, sign-up to receive blog posts via email (max of 1 email per day) or like us on Facebook! And as always feel free to ask questions in the comments below or email me.
Any chance on an update?
Robert, look for one coming soon!
Just use milez.biz – much more complete.
milez.biz is a great tool and obviously more comprehensive since it’s run on a database.
Don’t get too excited for the post-devaluations ;-) But when they roll around I’ll update the numbers. Plus adding the off-peak prices will be interesting and show some real value prices.
Great idea, I’ll look into adding some additional airlines to the future versions. Apart from Korean Air/Singapore are there any others you could see being useful?
I think VX would be helpful too! 40k to Australia!
Very intuitive. Great works!
Thanks! Glad you found them useful.
I find the infographics to be incomprehensible…….and can’t be the only one. Tables/charts are easy to understand.
They’re pretty complex, maybe after studying them a bit more you’ll get the hang of them.