How to Save on Last-Minute Flights Using Points & Miles

Most experienced travelers prefer to book their flights far in advance of their actual travel date. In general, booking ahead of time gives you the best chance of finding a seat on your desired flight. Likewise, cash prices and award flights (if they’re priced with dynamic pricing models) can often increase the closer you get to the departure date.

However, there are often scenarios in which you have no choice but to book a last-minute flight. Perhaps your friend just got engaged and you need to fly across the country for an unexpected bachelor or bachelorette party. Or perhaps there was a death in the family and you need to attend a funeral. Whatever the case, these are scenarios when understanding the best practices for buying last-minute flights can save you lots of money.

On top of that, there are also certain frequent-flyer programs that release premium-cabin award space at the last minute. These airlines would rather fill these seats with award travelers than leave them empty, so they often release new premium-cabin awards in the days just before a flight’s departure.

Let’s discuss how to save on last-minute flights by using points and miles and which airlines offer the best last-minute deals on award flights.

Quick Strategies for Securing Last-Minute Award Flights

In searching for last-minute award flights, you should first assess which of your reward accounts you want to use to book your flight. This includes credit card reward programs (such as American Express Membership Rewards and Chase Ultimate Rewards) as well as frequent-flyer programs (such as American Airlines AAdvantage and United Airlines MileagePlus).

We then recommend checking for award space through third-party award search tools, such as Seats.Aero or AwardTool. These tools allow you to filter for flight results that can be booked with specific rewards currencies.

For example, if you wanted to book a last-minute flight using Chase Ultimate Rewards points, you could filter your flight results for flights that could be booked with Chase points only.

These tools will then display available award flights that can be booked with your selected rewards and, if applicable, will show you which transfer partner you need to use for that award.

Continuing with the example above, the following flight result can be booked by transferring Chase Ultimate Rewards points to the United MileagePlus program.

These award search tools make it relatively easy to find last-minute award space (if any is available). However, it can also be helpful to know which frequent-flyer programs tend to offer the best deals on last-minute awards.

Which Airlines Offer the Best Last-Minute Award Space?

Some airlines tend to offer last-minute award space more than others, particularly when it comes to premium-cabin awards. Generally, economy-class awards will become more and more scarce as a flight’s departure date approaches. On the other hand, additional premium-cabin award space may be released just a day or two before the departure date.

Here are some of the airlines that tend to offer last-minute premium-cabin award space:

• Lufthansa Group Airlines: Lufthansa and other airlines owned by the Lufthansa Group (including Austrian Airlines, Brussels Airlines and Swiss International Air Lines) frequently offer last-minute premium-cabin award space. Business-class awards typically appear a day or two before first-class awards appear, and first-class awards typically appear a day or two before the flight’s departure.
• American Airlines: American Airlines often releases business-class awards at the last minute through its own AAdvantage loyalty program. These last-minute business-class awards are often available at Saver rates, which means you can get good value for your miles. Occasionally, you can find these last-minute American Airlines business-class awards through partner programs, but the AAdvantage program is usually your best bet.
• United Airlines: United uses a dynamic pricing model to price its own award flights. However, for close-in flights, United will often release business-class award inventory at reduced rates. While United international business-class awards aren’t typically available through partner programs, they will occasionally release these awards to partner programs at the last minute.
• Japan Airlines (JAL): You can often find last-minute business-class award space on JAL flights through partner programs (such as American Airlines AAdvantage, Atmos Rewards and Cathay Pacific Asia Miles). JAL also has one of the best-rated business-class products in the world (according to a 2025 Skytrax ranking), making this a good option for those who want to experience luxury on a budget.
• Emirates: Emirates has been known to release last-minute award space in both business and first class, mostly through its own frequent-flyer program, Skywards. Additionally, Emirates Skywards members can often upgrade economy-class flights with miles just before a flight’s departure.

Understanding which airlines tend to offer last-minute award availability can help narrow down your award search and save you time and miles.

How to Search for Hidden Award Availability?

Hidden award availability generally refers to award seats that are technically available, but they don’t show up on an airline’s website. Most often, these awards may only be bookable through a partner program.

As an example, a United flight may not be available through the MileagePlus program but may be available through other Star Alliance frequent-flyer programs, such as Avianca LifeMiles or Air Canada Aeroplan.

It’s hard to predict when there will be hidden award availability. So, before you book an award flight, we recommend checking for hidden availability through third-party search tools (like PointsYeah or AwardTool) or through partner programs directly.

Maximizing Flexible Points for Emergency Travel

Credit card points offer the most flexibility for travelers who want to book last-minute award flights. Whereas airline miles can be used only in their native loyalty program, credit card points can be transferred to several frequent-flyer programs.

Likewise, most credit card rewards programs have their own travel booking portals, which allow you to redeem points for nearly any available seat on any flight.

So, if you’re interested in saving up points for potential emergency travel, we recommend focusing on accumulating credit card points rather than airline miles.

Transfer Partners and Processing Times

In deciding which credit card program will provide the greatest benefit to you, it’s important to consider each programs’ available transfer partners (and which of these transfer partners you’re most likely to use).

The following table includes all of the airline transfer partners for all of the major U.S. credit card rewards programs:

*The first listed transfer ratio applies to those with the Citi Strata Elite℠ Card, the Citi Strata Premier℠ Card, the Citi Prestige Card and the AT&T Access More Card. The second transfer ratio applies to all other Citi cardholders.

If not specified, the transfer ratio for all of the transfer partners listed above is 1:1. In most cases, transfers from credit card rewards programs to frequent-flyer programs will process instantaneously, and your airline miles will be available immediately.

However, in some cases, transfers can take several days to process. If you want to know how long a specific transfer may take, you can reference General Transfer Times for Each Credit Card Rewards Program. Understanding these transfer times could help you avoid an unfortunate situation if you plan on making a transfer and then redeeming your miles for a last-minute flight.

Alternative Award Booking Methods

If you need to book a last-minute flight, we recommend making your booking as soon as possible. Once last-minute award space is released, it often gets booked rather quickly, so you’ll want to move fast. Once again, we recommend familiarizing yourself with credit card transfer times because if a transfer doesn’t occur instantaneously, then your desired award flight may no longer be available when your transfer finally processes.

Aside from that, there are some other lesser-known methods for securing last-minute award flights at good rates, which we’ll discuss in the following sections.

Expert Phone Booking Strategies

Sometimes, calling a frequent-flyer program’s customer service line can be helpful for securing last-minute award space. In particular, customer service employees can help you piece together an award flight itinerary that may not show up online.

For example, let’s say that you were searching for an award flight with Delta SkyMiles from New York (JFK) to Istanbul (IST), but you couldn’t find any availability. If you call the SkyMiles customer service line, they could potentially book two separate award flights for you: one from New York (JFK) to Frankfurt, Germany (FRA), and another from Frankfurt (FRA) to Istanbul (IST).

Marrying segments (as in the example above) may help you find an award flight when there don’t appear to be any online.

Mixed-Cabin Award Bookings

In some cases, booking mixed-cabin awards can help you find award space even when there isn’t any purely business-class or purely first-class availability online. Thus, booking mixed-cabin awards is typically easier over the phone.

For instance, let’s say that you were searching for a business-class award between Boston (BOS) and Zurich (ZRH) with Avios and you couldn’t find any availability. If you were to call Aer Lingus AerClub customer service, you could potentially find a mixed-cabin award with a business-class segment between Boston (BOS) and Dublin (DUB) and an economy-class segment between Dublin (DUB) and Zurich (ZRH).

In some cases, they’d even allow you to upgrade that economy-class segment later for no additional miles.

Cash + Points Options Worth Considering

If you want to book a last-minute award flight but you don’t have the required number of points or miles, you may want to look into “cash plus points” payment options before you start scrambling and investigating ways to quickly earn points or miles.

In many cases, frequent-flyer programs will allow you to pay for a portion of your airfare with points or miles. Thus, you can save cash on your last-minute flight booking without having the total required miles for the flight.

Tools and Resources for Quick Bookings

When searching for last-minute awards, time is of the essence. Utilizing the right tools and resources can help ensure that you don’t miss out on limited-time opportunities.

Award Search Platforms

As mentioned earlier in this article, third-party award search tools can be a huge asset when looking for last-minute award space availability. These tools allow you to access a lot of award flight data across all major frequent-flyer programs in a short amount of time.

Generally, we recommend using either AwardTool or Seats.Aero. AwardTool can be used for free and has a ton of excellent features that allow you to filter and sort results to find your perfect flight option.

Expert Monitoring Services

In addition to searching for award space availability, some of these third-party award search tools (including Seats.Aero, Expert Flyer and more) allow you to create a custom alert . These alerts allow you to enter your route information and flight preferences and will alert you in real time as awards become available that match your parameters.

Another great way to find last-minute award space is to use the 10xTravel Award Booking service. For a reasonable fee, experts will perform up to four award searches per month on your behalf and help you find the perfect award flight for your needs.

Your Last-Minute Award Flight Action Plan

Booking last-minute awards can be a great way to find premium-cabin awards at good rates. Oftentimes, airlines will release unoccupied premium-cabin seats as awards just a few days before the flight’s departure.

In particular, Lufthansa Group airlines (like Lufthansa, Austrian Airlines, Brussels Airlines and Swiss International Air Lines) are known to release last-minute premium cabin awards. U.S. airlines like American and United are also known to do so, sometimes at discounted rates.

Other times, booking flights at the last minute is just a necessity (due to a family emergency or major life event). Whatever the case, checking third-party searching tools (like AwardTool or Seats.Aero), utilizing frequent-flyer customer service phone lines and using the 10xTravel Award Booking service can be extremely helpful for getting you where you need to be at a reasonable rate.