✈️ How and when to book business class using points

Good morning ☀️ from Booked It On Points: A curated collection to keep you traveling for less money and more know how 👊🏽

Let’s dive in.

Here’s what’s on today—

📉 The first business class flight we took using points was roundtrip from the east coast to Tokyo for $88. My only complaint was that it wasn’t long enough. Yes, +20 hrs of lie flat seats, luxury first class service in the air and exclusive lounge access was not enough time in my opinion. That’s why I think booking long haul flights (Asia usually) is the ultimate way to find value in your points + miles. This flight is $88 in taxes and fees and with points from this welcome offer, you can have this flight booked in no time!

✈︎ Points + Miles

TOP STORY: How and when to book business class

So you’ve signed up for a credit card (or 2 or 3) and you’re ready to experience the world of (nearly) free travel, now what?

Naturally, you head to an airline website for a quick search and find some flights for hundreds of thousands of points. ❌ Don’t book that flight❌ 

While different searches have their own pros and cons to their “search-ability” here are my 2 favorite search engines to use when begining your search for flights using points + miles. 

Here’s the how: Functioning much like GoogleFlights, pointsyeah.com and seats.aero are my favorite ways to start any business class redemption search and here’s why.

Pointsyeah.com: It’s free and I love these 3 main searching features:

→ Select the cabin : Economy VS business

→ Select the bank program : I.e. blue bank, Capital One etc

→ Use the calendar feature : Search-ability across a 4-day window finding you the cheapest prices.

Next up:

Seats.aero : You can search by world regions as well as up to a year’s worth of options, plus:

→ Explore feature allows you to specify which bank and/or airline you want to use

→ Calendar feature allows you to search a year out and ± 30 days around any given date

→ Tools feature to search Q-suites, Delta One and other premier business class options

→ Wide range to search things like “east coast”, “USA”, “Asia” etc.

Finally, what about the timing? Well, it’s not entirely helpful but it’s the truth→ the best time to book a business class flight is either when the seat availability opens up (usually 11 months before the flight departure) OR last minute. If you are someone who has the luxury of planning last minute flights- I love this for you and your lie flat, warm towel experience. Go out there and find some amazing biz class redemptions and let me know all about it.

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✈︎ Travel News

JetBlue with MAJOR route cuts

It’s not new news; another budget airline is having persistent financial pains and as a result has made headlines with big time changes. You may recall previously I wrote about Spirit’s business class changes and now JetBlue is up.

Due to financial woes, JetBlue has announced cuts or halts to 24 routes and pulls out of 7 cities this fall. The plan: double down in New England → adding routes primarily between the NorthEast and Florida. For those holding tickets to on one of these routes? JetBlue says you are entitled to a rebooking or a refund.

Thanks for being here and have a great Tuesday!

Allie