When browsing forums—especially ones with lots of beginners—you often run into the argument that “miles are useless.” The logic usually goes like this: during peak season, cash fares to China are painfully expensive; if you try to use miles instead, you search and search and either find no award space, bad schedules, or itineraries with multiple connections. But in the off-season, while award space is plentiful, paid tickets may only cost $700 or $800 anyway, so they seem cheap enough to buy outright.
Quite a few people feel this way. In Points System Basics (2): What Are Airline Miles and Hotel Points?, we also mentioned that summer is a great time for airlines to make money, so they release very little award space at first. At the same time, we also said that if you search again for award tickets one to two weeks before departure in peak months like June and July, you may be in for a pleasant surprise. Rather than just saying it, let’s look at an example and see what actually happens.
For this experiment, we’ll look at award tickets between major cities: New York and Los Angeles on the U.S. side, and Beijing and Hong Kong on the China side. The target is flights from the U.S. to China in late June and early July. We searched once on March 24, and then searched again today to compare the results:
Contents [Hide]
Flights from Los Angeles to Beijing
Here are the results from March (mostly Air China, Air Canada, and UA):
And here are today’s results:
As you can see, there are far more seats available during this popular travel period. Not only are there more days with award space, but each day also has many more award options—including ANA’s highly regarded 777 and 787 service:
As well as Lufthansa’s flagship 747-8 and A380:
And EVA Air, with its charming flight attendantseasy to flirt with and excellent food:
Why are there suddenly so many seats? Just as we mentioned in the quoted article, “although economy sells well during this period, most business travelers are on vacation, so business and first class don’t sell as well. And the better the airline’s service, the more likely it is to dump business-class award space at the last minute. ANA, Lufthansa, EVA Air, Cathay Pacific, and others often do this.”
Flights from New York to Beijing
Here were the March results:
Things looked a little better, but late June was still not encouraging. The options were still mostly AC and UA, and none were nonstop.
So what do today’s results look like?
First of all, nonstop flights have appeared!
And the premium airlines are all there too—pick almost any day and the options are enough to make any miles enthusiast drool:
Flights from New York and Los Angeles to Hong Kong
Here are the March search results for departures from New York and Los Angeles:
LAX-HKG was downright awful, with flights on Air China and Air Canada. NYC-HKG was a bit better, but everything was on Air Canada, and some itineraries even required an overnight in Canada.
Now let’s see how New York looks today:
And for LAX today—see if it feels like night and day compared with before:
Time to fly EVA Air:
Conclusion: award tickets are not always better the earlier you book. Especially in summer, airlines tend to be conservative when they first release award space. Once departure gets close and they realize seats are not selling, they may open up a lot more award inventory. That can be the best time to book.
To wrap up, here are a few food photos from one EVA Air trip:
Related article: How to Book Award Tickets to China During Peak Season? (oneworld Edition)