Today is October 11th, and I decided to go see my daughter and her family in London on October 22nd. That is less than two weeks away, and of course, I want to do it in business class with credit card points and miles. Here is how I looked for a last-minute business award flight to London.

 

Considerations

Usually, I will position to another city for a great flight redemption. However, I find that there are two ways to get a good redemption—book early or book last minute. Since this is a last-minute flight, I thought I would prefer to travel from Denver and not do a positioning flight. 

 

Search Engines for Award Travel

I decided to look at pointsyeah.com and seats.aero to see what I could find. I put in Denver as starting point for 10/22 as I was hoping to leave after an appointment in Denver that afternoon.  My favorite feature on pointsyeah.com is the Daydream Explorer feature. I put Denver – LHR in and a two date search of 10/22-10/23 and filtered for business class only.

 

 

 

While the 57,500 miles on AA looked great, the $732 taxes and fees did not. I decided to pick the United flight (plus I love United Polaris). I looked on the United site to make sure I found availability and it was there.

 

 

 

Return Flight to Denver from London

The return flight had me making some more complex decisions. I wanted to fly home on the 28th. I found absolutely nothing on that day from London to Denver. On the 29th, I did find this on pointsyeah:

 

 

I was hoping to get home on the 28th, so I checked out anywhere in the United States from London and found a lot of possibilities. However, that meant I would still have to take a positioning flight home and still get home on the 29th.

 

 

I even found a flight on Avianca for 70K for a United flight – I got excited about that one until I looked on Avianca, and they only had economy class. That 70K business class flight was not actually there. That is why it is important to NEVER transfer points until you have found the flight on the booking site. Search engines are a great way to point you in the right direction but they are not always accurate.

 

Looking on Seatsaero.com

I have the Pro version of seatsaero.com, so I often look there, too. When looking for flights home, I did the following search and got these results:

 

 

I noticed that if I flew home a day later, on October 29th, I could fly into Denver for a reasonable amount. Weighing in the fact that I have traveled a lot lately,this was a last-minute decision to fly to London, and that I have some upcoming travel, I decided that this time, I would fly back into Denver. No overnight stays, no positioning flights. It just was going to work out best for me this time.

This did mean getting in to Denver at almost midnight, which would be 7:00 a.m. London time. I knew I would be exhausted, so I booked a night with a free Marriott annual night certificate at the Westin, which is adjacent to the Denver Airport. An easy walk over, and I could go right to sleep.

Last-minute note: I looked a couple of days later and found the perfect flight for me—one on October 28th with a connection in Houston and on to Denver.  Award redemptions often open up closer to the flight date as they find that people are not paying for them!
 

Bottom Line

Sometimes, a last-minute trip yields the best redemption rates, particularly in business class. Airlines are often willing to open up more award space as they realize people are not paying for those seats. My last-minute Business Award flight to London did not cost me too much in miles and worked with my dates. 

 

Related Posts

• Our Favorite Search Engines to Book Award Travel
• Seats.aero Award Flight Search Engine
• The Ultimate London Itinerary