The Best Award Ticket Options for Short Flights in the US
Did you know you can get a round trip economy award ticket in the US for as little as 9,000 miles? If your destination city is pretty close, distance and zone based awards might be your best option!
View from the Wing provides details on the brief Avianca LifeMiles redemption sale through September 15 and how to use it to get round trip United flights for as little as 15,000 miles when between East Coast states. And you can pair this with their current offer to buy miles at 1.4 cents each, which means your flights might be as cheap as ~$208. Read his post for more details on how to make the most of it.
My favorite approach is using British Airways Avios for flights of 650 miles or less. A one way ticket on American is only 4,500 Avios, plus a few dollars in taxes and fees. This has been a great option when I’ve needed to make last minute flights to New York or other neighboring states and the prices are outrageous.
And even going farther afield is still a pretty good deal. Flights up to 1150 miles away are only 7,500 miles in economy each way.
Don’t have Avios? If you have Chase Ultimate Reward Points you can instantly transfer them to British Airways.
Not sure how far your destination is? Use the Great Circle Mapper to estimate the distance. You can also use the British Airways Avios calculator.
I’ve had some success getting Southwest flights for under 4,500 Avios, so that can be another good place to check.
I would argue that Spirit might also be a good option for short haul awards in some markets like say Kansas City-Detroit.