Guide to Effective Long-Haul Premium Award Search

First step

Search for a one-way from the origin (XXX) to destination (YYY). Pick +6 days to do an initial week-long search.

Pick all the airline sites that are relevant to what miles you have. For example, if you are looking for awards on Star Alliance airlines, pick all the Star Alliance (*) airline sites. Same for SkyTeam or oneworld.

Review results

Once done, review the search to see if you find any flights that you like. Don't forget that on the viewer, you can select Direct to show direct flights only, or select Display: as routing to see what routes are available.

Continuing steps

If you have some flexibility and you don't see anything you like in the first search, run another 2 - 3 searches, changing the alliance, moving a week before/after, or pick a different award type, such as trying Business instead of First.

First step

Go to Route Explorer. Enter your origin (XXX) and destination (YYY). Select 2-stop and your alliance.

Click on Explore routes.

Review all the paths found. Focus on longer-distance segments. They are usually the most critical ones.

Pick 4 long-haul segments. For example:

• XXX-AAA
• XXX-BBB
• CCC-YYY
• DDD-YYY

Run a search with the 4 segments, select +5 days and other settings as needed.

Review results

If award seats are found on one or more long-haul segments, reference it in the Route Explorer results and search for the segment that connects to/from that long-haul segment.

For example, if you found a long-haul XXX-AAA, do a follow-up search for AAA-YYY. Repeat this for any long-haul segments found, until you found a fully-connected itinerary.

Continuing steps

If your first 4 long-haul segments searches found no availability, go back and pick another 4 segments and repeat the process for another 1 - 2 times.

First step

There are no particular steps at this point. Instead, here are a few tricks you can work on:

1. Go back to Route Explorer and tweak the settings. Try to discover additional routes by increasing the maximum stops, maximum mileage, or include additional airline partners that your miles may be used.

2. Continue the segment-by-segment approach in phase II, on a recurring basis. For efficiency, do 6 - 10 searches in phase II every few days, instead of launching dozens of searches in a single day.

3. Set up an automated search on the top 4 long-haul segments or missing segments, to monitor future award opening.

4. Consider booking what's available speculatively, in the hope that the connecting segments may become available later and you can add it. For example, if XXX-AAA is available now, book it, and wait for AAA-YYY to become available.

Continuing steps

There are no particular continuing steps. Award Nexus significantly speeds up your deep or long-term search, but you must decide how important the trip is, and how far you want to take it.