How to use Seats.aero to find the best airline award availability

Points and miles are easy to earn, but if you’ve been struggling to redeem them, particularly for premium-cabin flights, you need to know about this tool that could save you hundreds — if not thousands — of minutes, miles and dollars.

Over the past few years, many third-party redemption availability platforms have sprung up, promising to help you find real-time award seats faster without visiting different airline loyalty websites.

I’ve tried almost all of them, and while none are perfect, I have found Seats.aero is by far the most useful. It’s now my go-to resource when looking for award seats across more than a dozen of my favorite airline loyalty programs, which is a huge time-saver when deciding where to transfer my credit card points.

Seats.aero offers both a free and a paid “Pro” version and is not affiliated with any airline. The free version shows seats for the next 60 days, while the Pro version shows a full year of availability and advanced filters and alerts for $9.99 monthly or $99.99 for a 12-month subscription. I have a Pro version that has paid for itself many times over.

Here’s why Seats.aero has revolutionized how I redeem my points and miles.

Related: Best frequent flyer programs for US travelers

Search 19 airline loyalty programs on all dates and routes

Seats.aero currently supports results from 19 different airline loyalty programs, and this number is steadily growing. At the time of publication, you can use this tool to check availability through the following programs:

• Aeromexico Rewards
• Air Canada Aeroplan
• Air France-KLM Flying Blue
• Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan
• American Airlines AAdvantage
• Azul Brazilian Airlines Fidelidade
• Copa Airlines ConnectMiles
• Delta Air Lines SkyMiles
• Emirates Skywards
• Etihad Airways Guest
• Gol Airlines Smiles
• JetBlue TrueBlue
• Lufthansa Miles & More
• Qantas Frequent Flyer
• Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer
• Turkish Airlines Miles&Smiles
• United Airlines MileagePlus
• Virgin Atlantic Flying Club
• Virgin Australia Velocity

As an example of the power of this tool, Air Canada’s Aeroplan program is my favorite Star Alliance loyalty program thanks to its excellent partner redemption rates and long list of airline partners both inside and outside of Star Alliance. It’s also a transfer partner of multiple credit card programs.

So, say I want to redeem Aeroplan points to fly business class to Europe this summer. I select Aeroplan from the “Explore” tab in my Pro account and then set the results to show a full year of flights from North America to Europe.

This returns a whopping 88,468 results in seconds, far too many to comb through.

But using the tool’s handy and powerful filter options, I can narrow down the results by only showing flights leaving in July 2025, entering “2025-07” in the date column, and only leaving from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK), entering the three-letter airport code in the “Departs” field, and setting a price of 70,000 points in the column for business class.

This reduces the results to a more manageable 187 options. This means that for the month of July 2025, there are 187 flights available to book in business class to Europe from JFK for just 70,000 Aeroplan points.

That’s potentially up to six different flights per day with at least one seat available in the peak summer season, which is a very generous number for anyone who has struggled to score a lie-flat seat to Europe for such a reasonable price.

Related: The best ways to travel to Europe using points and miles

But let’s say you need four seats to take the whole family to Europe and still want lie-flat seats. Adjusting the “Seats” filter from one to four shows 60 different flights in July with at least four seats.

Here is just a selection.

Nonstop flights are shown in green while connecting options are shown in blue. You can click the information button on the right to see details of the flight time, carrier(s) and any connections. Let’s see what the option to Vienna Airport (VIE) on July 30 says.

As the “Last Seen” column shows that this seat result was last seen 18 hours ago, there’s a chance the seats were already booked and are no longer available, as live availability changes constantly. Not to fear: When you click on the information button, Seats.aero will run a live check for Pro members of that route on that date to confirm what is still available.

There are several options available from New York to Vienna on that day that are still available — the first three are a combination of Lufthansa and Austrian Airlines flights, while LOT Polish Airlines operates the last two, and you can see the codes for the connecting airports.

The numbers in parentheses represent the number of seats available. The first two options only have one seat at that price, while the third option, which conveniently only has one connection, has an impressive six seats available to book with Aeroplan points (plus the fees, taxes and surcharges listed).

For Aeroplan search results, the cash payment required is listed in Canadian dollars as it’s a Canada-based loyalty program, but you can use Google for a quick currency conversion. Sometimes, this tool is not 100% accurate with the fees and taxes, so double-check on the airline’s website to confirm.

Related: A review of Air Canada business class on the Boeing 787 Dreamliner from Montreal to London

If you want more details about connection times, distance flown and aircraft types, click on the two downward blue arrows in your preferred itinerary.

The tool also has a (beta) seat map function, which shows the aircraft’s layout for each flight. This function is great for securing an airline’s best product, like Qatar Airways’ Qsuite or British Airways’ Club Suite.

You can also see how many seats are occupied and decide which seat you might like to select before you commit to redeeming your points for the flight.

You’ll still need to select your seats on the operating airline’s website before or after you book, but this is a handy tool for checking the seat configuration and which seats are occupied before booking.

Related: Where is the best seat on an airplane? Here’s how to choose the place to sit whenever you fly

Search all 19 programs across multiple routes and dates at once

Say you have transferable credit card points, like American Express Membership Rewards points, and you want to book a business-class flight to Europe in July from New York.

However, you’re not tied to one transfer partner, alliance or airline, but you want to travel on a specific day (let’s say the first Friday in July). You have flexibility around which European airport you fly into, provided you can fly from New York on July 4 for a reasonable number of points or miles.

Using the “Search” tab rather than the “Explore” tab, you can search all 19 programs simultaneously for your preferred date or date range. You can set a specific origin and destination or search for a range of airports by entering the three-letter codes individually or using the handy “EUR” airport code, which captures all major European airports.

The same shortcut can be used to search to or from all U.S. airports: Use the airport code “USA.”

The search results show all flights from JFK to European airports July 4. The flights are listed again as nonstop in green and connecting in blue.

If you have Amex points to redeem, you can filter the results by airline loyalty programs to which you can transfer Membership Rewards points. You can select whichever programs you wish to use if you have transferable rewards in multiple credit card programs, with Bilt Rewards, Capital One miles, Chase Ultimate Rewards and Citi ThankYou Rewards also supported.

The airline loyalty programs are also listed in the search results. For example, you could fly nonstop from JFK to London’s Heathrow Airport (LHR) on July 4 in business class for 61,200 Qantas points or 80,000 Etihad Guest miles — both are American Express Membership Rewards transfer partners.

While the Qantas option seems like a better value because fewer Amex points are required, always click the information button to check carriers, flight times and fees, taxes and surcharges.

In this case, the Etihad Guest redemption option flying JetBlue would be a better deal than the American Airlines AAdvantage option flying British Airways because JetBlue (and Etihad Guest) do not charge large carrier-imposed surcharges.

The search function is also handy if you want to fly on a specific route but have flexible dates. Let’s look at another region.

Flying to Australia in business class using points and miles is notoriously difficult.

If you live near San Francisco and want to use your Chase Ultimate Rewards points to fly to Sydney Airport (SYD) next winter, you could use the search function to search a month on either side of Jan. 1, 2026, only on that route and only in business class, and set the “Transfer Partners” filter to show only Chase transfer partners.

The search results show that you could fly this route on many dates in December and January for 115,000 Air Canada Aeroplan points.

You can choose which date works best for you, transfer your Chase points to Aeroplan and book the flights.

Related: Reader success story: How this reader visited 8 countries in 3 years using points and miles

Create alerts when your preferred flight becomes available

If the flight you want is unavailable when searching, you can set alerts to be notified if it does become available. And you’re not limited to one route or date when you set an alert — you can select which points and miles you want to use, as well as multiple departing and connecting airports, date ranges and classes.

Related: The holy grail of award tickets: Flying Lufthansa first class on the Boeing 747-8

If you have a Pro membership, you can set additional filters to refine your travel choices even further, including:

• How many seats on the flight you would like to see available
• The maximum number of points or miles you wish to use
• The maximum amount of fees, taxes and surcharges you wish to pay
• How many connections you would be willing to take (or if you only want to see nonstop flights)
• Specific flight numbers you want to focus on

You can also disable dynamic pricing results if you only want to pay the lowest saver-level prices.

If the product I am hoping for isn’t available when I’m searching, I often redeem my points or miles for something “acceptable” that is available at the time. I then set alerts in case something better comes up, and I can be notified by email (for free accounts) or SMS (for Pro accounts) so that I can upgrade my travel and book a better flight as quickly as possible.

Handy tools for your preferred program and product

Seats.aero has a growing number of handy tools. Here are some of the most useful:

• ANA first class finder: With one click, every first-class award seat operated by Japanese carrier All Nippon Airways available to book with partner program miles is shown. This is especially useful if you are looking for seats to book with Virgin Atlantic Flying Club points, as these do not show on Virgin Atlantic’s own website. You can use Seats.aero to find the available seats, then call Virgin Atlantic to book them at much lower rates than United MileagePlus or Velocity charges.

• Lufthansa first class finder: Lufthansa releases some unsold first-class seats to partner loyalty programs up to 14 days before travel, though most seats are added just a few days before travel. This tool shows all available seats by route and date and the rates the supported programs charge. Aeroplan is usually your best option to book Lufthansa first class following the Avianca LifeMiles devaluation.
• Qatar Qsuite finder: I rate Qatar Airways Qsuite as the best business-class product I have flown, but it’s not installed on all planes and routes. Rather than combing through seat maps or looking for seat descriptions on Google Flights, this Seats.aero tool will show you which flights feature the product and have availability to book with your preferred mileage currency as well as the prices and dates. You can filter to only show flights to and from your preferred regions, such as from the United States to Hamad International Airport (DOH).

• United upgrade/PlusPoints finder: If you hold Premier Platinum, Premier 1K or Global Services elite status in United’s MileagePlus program and want to use your PlusPoints to upgrade a United flight, this tool will show you all flight routes and dates with PZ and PN space, which is critical for redeeming these PlusPoints. You can then use the search function to filter for your preferred airport, date or flight number.

How does Seats.aero compare to other third-party tools?

Several independent tools have been created to help travelers find award seats more easily, especially when they have transferable points and are overwhelmed by the transfer options available.

I’ve tried out various other tools and each has it own strengths and weaknesses, namely:

• ExpertFlyer (owned by TPG’s parent company, Red Ventures): Many airlines are no longer supported, and you can only search one route at a time and over seven days.
• Point.me: While this platform searches far more programs than the 19 supported by Seats.aero, the search results take a long time to load, and you can only search one route at a time and only one date (and then the day before and after).
• Points Path: Only works within the limitations of Google Flights.
• Roame: The free version only supports 11 airline loyalty programs and you can only search one route at a time.

Bottom line

Seats.aero is not perfect. I wish it were a little better about remembering my preferences, such as always wanting to see the maximum number of flights listed in the search results (rather than only 25 per page). It’s also missing some high-profile airline loyalty programs, notably an Avios option. Still, given the speed at which the platform has added tools and additional airline programs, I’m hopeful it will continue to evolve and add extra features and benefits.

It has revolutionized how I find award availability daily because of its incredible ability to search across an entire year in seconds — no more clicking day by day, week by week, or month by month. Compared with the other (also innovative) third-party tools created to assist travelers, I’ve found Seats.aero is by far the most useful and easiest to use.

If you have transferable credit card points and want to get the best value, whether your dates and routes are fixed or wide open, Seats.aero can instantly show you how to best redeem your points and miles and book the most comfortable seat at the lowest price.