3 Tools I Use That Changed How I Find Business Class Flights Using Points (And the Free One Most Amex Cardholders Don't Know About)

The short version

• Award flight search tools work like Google Flights — but for points across 24–150+ loyalty programs at once.

• My favorite is my first stop for almost every search: fast, clean, and built for people who actually know how to use points/use the search filters.

• The second is my pick when dates aren’t flexible and I need side-by-side comparisons with real transfer partner breakdowns (an AMEX holders get a free version of it)

• The third is where I go first for any Asia-focused search — the SkyView regional search feature is genuinely excellent.

A quick note if you're still learning the points & miles language: an award flight is a flight you book with points or miles instead of cash. The points sitting in your Chase, Amex, or Citi account can be transferred to an airline's loyalty program and used to book business class seats that might otherwise cost $5,000–$10,000 in cash. The catch is that those seats don't live on Google Flights — airlines release award space through their own loyalty portals, availability changes constantly, and the points cost varies depending on which program you book through. That complexity is exactly what these tools solve.

Let me tell you what award flight searching looked like before these tools existed. You’d pull up a mental list (or, if you were very organized, a spreadsheet or a quick google search) of transfer partners for your Chase Ultimate Rewards card. Then you’d open a separate tab for each airline and manually search availability on every single one: United. Singapore. Air Canada Aeroplan. Then repeat the whole exercise for your Amex Membership Rewards. Then your Citi ThankYou Points, then Capital One. Then somewhere in hour two, you’d find a seat — and realize it’s on an airline that isn’t actually a transfer partner for the card where you have the most points.

I’m tired just writing that. And yet — this is still how a lot of people are searching. I think that’s why people also resort to just booking through the credit card travel portal and blowing most of their points on an economy redemption. If that’s you, please stop. There are tools that essentially work like Google Flights for points and miles, and they’ve changed everything about how I approach award searching.

The three I use most consistently are listed below. I have a favorite, which I typically open first, there’s one I go to when dates are locked and I need a full comparison, and the third is my first call for any Asia itinerary—mainly because of the airlines that it supports. And if you have American Express Membership Rewards, there’s a free version of one built specifically for Amex cardholders that costs you nothing and gets you farther than the old manual method ever could.

These three tools have helped me save over $20,000 in flights so far this year (primarily lie-flat international business class seats), and saved me over $40,000 in flights last year.

My nerdy spreadsheet that keeps tracks of my points and miles redemptions :D

Before knowing these tools existed, I typically would redeem my points for flights in the credit card travel portal at 1 cent per point, primarily because I thought that was the easiest way but also because I didn’t know what my options were. I was always frustrated that it would take nearly all of my points to book a roundtrip ticket in economy.

With the help of the tools below, I now only fly business class for long haul international flights (paying just the taxes and fees), I’ve been able to use these points to fly my family of 4 in lie flat seats to Europe, and in many cases I get 4x-5x more value from those points than I would if I were redeeming them through the credit card travel portal. As I mentioned just now the travel portal typically caps your points at 1 cent per point, with the exception of Chase who sometimes gives you 1.25 cents per point, 1.5 cents per point, or up to 2 cents per point if you have the Chase Sapphire Reserve. However if you look at the “Redemption Value” column in my nerdy spreadsheet above, you’ll see I’ve been able to get up to 13 cents per point with one redemption this year, but my average is 4-5 cents per point (which is 4x-5x more than what the credit card portals offer you).

Flying to Europe earlier this summer with the family

Here are the tools that have really changed the game for me and why, at this level, the paid accounts make complete sense.

Paid subscribers get the list. Annual subscribers ($60/yr) also get my First Class Travel, Economy Budget course free.