Strictly Travel

This article is written from my own perspective, but may include affiliate links.

Finding Award flights by scraping each award program can take hours at a time. Finding the best business class deals can be ever harder with limit availability and select dates. One of my favorite award search tools is Awardtool.com which offers a completely free basic search engine to find the best flights. Award Tool offers a limited free version while there is also a premium version of the application.

For those who are just getting started with Award Travel, I think the free version is amazing and easy to use. The site’s layout is perfect and allows you to search over 20 programs for award flight deals. The site covers all major US programs such as United Mileage Plus, American Airlines AAdvantage, Delta Skymiles, Alaska Atmos, along with many popular international programs such as Life Miles, Aeroplan(Air Canada), and Flying Blue(Air France and KLM). Award Tool also has a hotel award search functionality, but hotel awards tend to be much easier to find.

Key Points:

• Use of Award Tool for Finding Award Flights: Award Tool is a free and premium award search tool that simplifies the process of finding the best business class deal options across over 20 major US and international award programs.
• Features and Search Functions of Award Tool: Award Tool offers flight search options for specific routes and a Panorama feature for exploring deals within a 90-day window, aiding flexible travelers in locating last-minute business class deals.
• Pricing and Value of Award Tool: Award Tool Pro is affordable, starting at $9.99 per month, with a free version available; it provides significant time savings and access to extensive award deal alerts.
• Utilizing Award Alerts for Better Deals: Award Tool allows users to set alerts for specific routes, helping them track and seize available deals, especially useful for travelers with fixed airports or dates.

How to Use Award Tool

Award Tool has two primary search functions for Award Flights: Flights or Panorama. The flights search function allows you search for flight between a set of airports. For those using the free version, you can select up to 4 days or flights between 4 airports on a given day. For those on AwardTool Pro, you can search for flights in a 32 entry method meaning any combination or airports or days up to 32 different combinations.

For the Panorama search, you can search for the best deals in a 90 day window. You can search either from airport or region and vice versa. This function is currently only available to Pro members. I personally have leveraged the Panorama search to find last minute deals to Europe, Europe to Asia, and flights to the Maldives. If you have flexibility and can make last minute plans, AwardTool panorama is perfect for finding deals.

Additionally, there is also a deals tab where searches from other users can get cached. Some of these deals may still be around, but I haven’t used this function much.

Pricing

AwardTool Pro starts at $9.99 a month or 119.88 per year. There is currently a sale for $7.99 for the first month or $75.99 for the first year (renewal at $94.99). For under $6.50 a month, I have gotten fantastic value and save countless hours. If you’re planning to travel at least several times a year, I think AwardTool Pro is fantastic, otherwise if you’re just looking for one trip in a strict timeline, the free version works will do just fine. Overall I think AwardTool Pro is affordable, but you can get by with the free version as well.

Flight Alerts

Another cool feature for both free and premium users is the award alert function. You can set filters for specific routes and get alerted when a deal is available. Again, free users can get alerts on 3 award routes, while premium users can subscribe to 70+ alerts. This is a great function for those who want to fly out of a specific airport during a given date range. While you may not always end up with the premium airline or cabin of choice, AwardTool opens the door to broader options without needing to spend countless hours scraping each award program.

Some of the trip I booked using AwardTool Include:

• LAX to LHR via American Airlines Flagship Business
• DOH to MLE via Qatar First Class
• HKG – SFO via United Airlines Polaris Business Class
• SFO – HKG via China Airlines Business Class