Miles & Points for Beginners: Sweet Spots

Here in Part 7 of our Miles & Points for Beginners series, we’ll continue looking at options and strategies regarding the redemption phase of your points journey.

In Part 6, we went over how to define a “good deal,” how to assess if the award flights you find in your searches are providing you with good value, and how to balance all this information with your own personal travel priorities and desires.

In support of your hunt for good deals, this article will dive into redemption “sweet spots” to build your knowledge on these incredibly helpful and valuable award flight options.

By being tuned-in with existing and potential sweet spots, you’ll be even more well equipped to make high-value redemptions and to enjoy your first (and second and third) business class flight for close to free.

Loyalty Programs & Sweet Spots

As you begin to research different loyalty programs to invest in, and you build your knowledge on how to find award flights that represent a good deal, one of the most important things to look for in each program is their sweet spots.

When we say “sweet spot,” what we’re referring to is the best possible way (in terms of points or cash value) to book a particular flight, especially when compared to other programs. To help give you a good understanding of what a sweet spot entails, we’ll go over a number of examples throughout this article.

As you journey further into Miles & Points, knowing and leveraging sweet spots within each program will help you maximize your redemptions, save points, and have some outstanding experiences to boot.

In many of our loyalty program guides, we list sweet spots and how to book them with points, but in this article, we’ll focus exclusively on a few of our favourite programs that are easily accessible, have excellent award pricing, and solid sweet spots.

We’ll also give you some insight into how to identify sweet spots in general, which builds nicely on Part 6’s lesson on “what’s a good deal.”

Air Canada Aeroplan

Air Canada’s Aeroplan is a versatile program that’s particularly easy to access in Canada since there are many co-branded credit cards, and since you can transfer your American Express Membership Rewards points (MR points) to Aeroplan at a 1:1 ratio.

Aeroplan also enjoys the benefit of over 45 airline partners, so there are redemption options in…