Airline Award Release Dates

One of the best pieces of advice for finding award flights is search early and search often. Ideally, when your award space is released you want to be ready to pounce. However, each airline has a different schedule for when it releases awards. In this guide we'll look at airline award release dates for each major program.

Navigating Award Release Dates

Understanding when airlines release awards and opens its calendar helps position you to book your award early. Additionally, by studying award availability patterns you can get a good sense of what usually becomes available. Of course, nothing is guaranteed. I recently put this into practice when booking a flight to Turkey. I researched and found that Turkish Airlines operates a direct flight out of Boston to Istanbul. And also that they open the calendar for awards 354 days in advance. By studying award availability, I could see that 354 days out, they pretty consistently had availability for at least 2 seats in business class. I started my searches about a year out, and when my preferred dates opened up I was able to pounce and get the exact awards I wanted.

Summary of Airline Award Release Dates

The following chart summarizes when airlines release awards for the most popular airline programs.

Award Release Schedules For Partner Awards

Booking a saver award via a partner poses an interesting question when it relates to award release schedules. If you are booking an award with a partner, which airline's schedule are you beholden to? The answer is both. This is because the ticketing airline can only issue tickets out to the date of their award schedules. Further, the operating airline is only releasing awards out to their award release schedule. Therefore, you are limited by the shorter of the two award release schedules.

Opening the Calendar Does Not Guarantee Awards

The only thing that is constant in award travel is change. As such, just because the award calendar has opened for your dates, does not mean there is guaranteed to be awards. There is a myth that at 12:01 am on release day, all of that airlines saver awards will be released. This is unfortunately, not true. Award availability is more fickle than that, and who knows what determines when they are released. By studying award availability you can certainly start to pick up on some patterns, however. Further, due to time zones it is also possible that actual release times may vary slightly.

A Note on Last Minute Awards

While searching early and searching often continues to be a fantastic way to score award flights, lets not forget about last minute availability. After all, last minute awards tend to be the holy grail of award availability. Often times, airlines will open up unsold seats closer in to departure as saver awards. Of course, many of us like to plan ahead, but if you are able to book last minute you can generally find some great availability. Some airlines, such as Lufthansa, are notorious for only releasing saver first class awards within 1-2 weeks of departure. If you have missed the award release date know that not all hope is lost.

Airline Award Release Dates: ToP Thoughts

Finding award space can seem daunting. But by understanding the ins and outs of award release schedules you can better prepare for takeoff. Each airline has it's own award release schedule, referencing this chart will help you plan your award bookings ahead of time. Searching early and searching often gives you the upper-hand in booking your ideal award flight. Lastly, remember that award availability is never guaranteed, and if all else fails last minute award availability can be great. Have you secured an award when the calendar opened? Let us know over in the ToP Facebook Group!