The Most Common Award Availability Release Patterns

Award availability can be a mysterious beast. At the end of the day, however, there’s only so many availability release patterns that any given airline can follow.

The better you are at spotting these patterns and figuring out which category any airline falls into, the bigger the advantage you’ll have when trying to book the exact seat on the exact route you want.

Let’s take a look at the various types of award availability patterns you might encounter, as well as a few examples of each.

Note that we’ll be focusing on “saver”-level award availability in this discussion. Thus, under a dynamic pricing model, the question would be whether or not there are saver-level award seats that you can book, as opposed to seats that are only bookable at a dynamically high price.

1. Guaranteed Award Availability

Some airlines around the world guarantee that a given number of seats will be made available to travellers bookable on points.

For example, both British Airways and Virgin Atlantic have policies guarantee that at least four seats in business class on each flight can be booked using Avios or Flying Club miles, respectively.

This type of award seat guarantee is fairly rare, given the sheer effectiveness of award availability as a tool for airlines to maximize revenue while offloading distressed inventory.

2. Predictable Award Availability at the Start of Schedule

This is the most common award availability release pattern. Airlines will typically designate a certain number of seats in each class of service on each flight as award seats, at the same time that the flight becomes bookable with cash.

This typically happens at ~330–355 days before departure, depending on the specific combination of the airline you’re booking and the loyalty program you’re booking with.

The vast majority of the world’s airlines that you can book on points will follow this pattern to some degree, so it’s arguably the most common pattern on this list.

3. Last-Minute Award Availability

Many airlines follow a pattern of releasing extra award seats – either the entire unfilled cabin or a portion of the cabin, perhaps up to a certain limit – a given number of days before departure.

For example, Lufthansa First Class is well-known for only releasing award seats to partners at most 14 days in advance (although…