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We often write about great award sweet spots or availability, but in both cases the best deals are often discussed from international gateways. If you don’t live in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, or one of the other major international hubs in the United States, you often still need to get to one of those cities. We frequently mention positioning, which means getting to where you need to be to catch that great deal flight award or take advantage of rare availability. Lately, quite a few readers have reached out wondering how to handle positioning for awards. This post is meant as a beginning primer to positioning.
What is a positioning or a positioning flight?
When you find a great deal on a flight, whether that’s a terrific cash price, an award chart sweet spot, or rare availability, it isn’t always leaving from your home airport. You’ll therefore need to position — that is to get yourself from home to the airport that has that great deal.
Often, this refers to a positioning flight. Let’s say you live in Cleveland but you’ve found a great deal out of Washington, DC. You may need to book a separate flight from Cleveland to Washington in order to take advantage of that great deal on a Washington departure.
This post covers the many options and considerations for positioning.
Is positioning worth it?
There won’t be a one-size-fits-all answer to this question as there are many factors to consider. Will positioning come at an added expense in terms of time, stress, etc? Don’t forget to include not only the cost of positioning but also additional added expenses like a hotel (if arriving the night before).
Some domestic flights, particularly at peak travel times, can be quite expensive. However, depending on your planning flexibility, you certainly may be able to score a good deal on your positioning flight (whether with miles or money) and that can make it worthwhile.
It also just may be necessary. While the ideal way to handle a positioning flight is to include it in your major award booking, that just isn’t always possible since airlines don’t always make award seats available on domestic connections. I often say that positioning is just part of the cost of doing business if you live in a small market.
The ideal situation: include your positioning flight in your award booking
The ideal method for a positioning flight to your gateway city is to include the positioning flight in your itinerary / award booking. For instance, imagine you’re based on Cleveland and you want to go to Frankfurt. You’ve found availability from Washington, DC to Frankfurt in business class on United via United MileagePlus for 62,800 miles one way.
You may be able to search from Cleveland and include the positioning flight that gets you to Washington, DC for no additional miles. Note that the segment from Cleveland to Washington is in economy class, but an hour and fourteen minutes in economy class to catch an eight-hour business class flight to Europe is likely well worth it.
If those flights are both “Saver” awards (and they are, though it isn’t immediately available based on the screen shots above), then you should be able to book that same itinerary through other Star Alliance carriers. For instance, here it is via Avianca LifeMiles.
The same technique can work via many other award programs, but only when that connecting flight is available and with varying rules depending on the program. In some programs, that connecting flight will cost you more (this could happen with a distance-based award chart). Some programs have rules about which carriers can be combined (for instance, one airline might allow you to combine a non-alliance carrier with their alliance carriers, but others do not). There is obviously the problem that the connecting flight you want might not be available as a saver award.
Domestic airlines don’t always release award availability on domestic connections. When they do, sometimes those domestic legs are only available in conjunction with certain long-haul flights (married segment logic). Sometimes, the airline search engine just doesn’t display all of the available options — so there may be availability that isn’t immediately obvious. And sometimes, you just may be able to get a better deal on a positioning flight from another airline (but we’ll cover that separately).
The biggest of the obstacle when we’re talking about combining the positioning flight(s) into a single award with your major flight is that the operating airline needs to have saver-level availability on a positioning flight that works. For international itineraries, you are usually allowed a layover of up to 24 hours (note that on entirely domestic itineraries the rules vary). This means that any positioning flight(s) must arrive within 24 hours of the departure time of your next flight (and with enough time for you to make the connection).
That said, airline search engines won’t always show all possible itineraries, so it is possible that you’ll encounter a situation where there is a flight to get you from your starting point (A) to your international gateway (B) that isn’t displayed online. You might need to call to see if you can combine those flights. Relatedly, I recently wrote about making an Avianca LifeMiles manual booking. In that case, I had found a flight from Istanbul to New York that I wanted to book, but I will start in Helsinki, Finland. There was a flight from Helsinki to Istanbul that arrived within 24 hours if the departure time for the Istanbul-to-New York flight, but those two flights did not show up together online. I had to email Avianca to manually build that booking using the flights I wanted (which worked because both flights were available separately). You can read more about that here. I don’t recommend a LifeMiles manual booking for a beginner, but the concept can be applied to other programs where you would call to try piecing together the booking you want (like American Airlines, Alaska Airlines, or Air Canada Aeroplan for instance).
Expanded availability for elite members and cardholders
Keep in mind that your airline status might make some positioning flights available to you that are not available to those booking through other programs.
For instance, if you have elite status or a credit card with United MileagePlus, you get access to expanded award availability. That might make a positioning flight available to you that otherwise wouldn’t be available when booking via another Star Alliance program. The same is true with many other airlines.
If you see a seat available as a United credit card holder that says it is only available to Chase United cardholders, keep in mind that you will not be able to book that expanded availability if you book your award through a partner program.
Add a positioning flight later?
It may be possible to first book your main award flight and then add a positioning flight(s) later. For instance, I have an award booked via Alaska Mileage Plan for travel on Fiji Airways from Los Angeles to Fiji. I live in New York State, so I need to position to Los Angeles for that award. It should theoretically be possible (with Alaska Mileage Plan) for me to have booked that Fiji Airways flight and then later call Alaska and add the positioning flight from New York to Los Angeles (assuming I find availability on a flight that arrives in Los Angeles within 24 hours of the departure for Fiji). I say theoretically because I haven’t yet done it myself, but I’ve heard from others that Alaska can do it. Whether or not you find an agent who knows how to do it without messing up the Fiji Airways award is another story, but it should be doable with Alaska.
I have heard of success in later adding a positioning flight with American Airlines AAdvantage, though I’m not certain that this will work every time (I ran into a situation where agents told me that they couldn’t add a leg I wanted on the end of an existing award without cancelling and rebooking, but in that case I was looking to change the final destination region, so I’m not sure if that was the main limitation). Also keep in mind that American’s Web Specials can not be changed, so it wouldn’t be possible to later add a positioning flight.
I am not immediately aware of other airline programs that would allow a positioning flight to be added at a later time, but if readers are please let me know in the comments.
Book a separate positioning flight on the same carrier / alliance
If possible, it might make sense to book your separate positioning flight on the same carrier or at least the same alliance as your main award.
For instance, let’s say that you are based in Dallas and you are booking an award from London to New York but you’ll need a separate positioning flight to get home to Dallas from New York. If you’re flying on a British Airways award from London to New York, it might make sense to book your separate positioning home flight on oneworld airline American Airlines. There are a few reasons for this.
First, British Airways should be able to check your luggage through to Dallas since you’re continuing onward on a oneworld flight (though keep in mind in this specific example that you’ll of course need to pick up your bags in New York and head through customs before re-checking them because of the US rules; in the opposite direction, it would be a seamless check-through to your final destination). Second, and more importantly, American Airlines will treat you as though you’re traveling on a single ticket. This means that if your flight from London to New York gets cancelled or significantly delayed and you miss the onward flight to Dallas, they should help get you to Dallas at no additional cost. For this to work, your two flights need to be on American or American and a oneworld partner and your ticket needs to be on a oneworld airline’s ticket stock.
Unfortunately, I don’t think that most other carriers will provide the same protection on separate tickets. This means you risk being in a tight spot in the case of a significant delay or cancellation if you’re traveling on separate tickets, even on the same carrier. We recently highlighted a question of the week about Delta whereby I learned that if you had, for example, a Delta award from Europe to the US booked via Virgin Atlantic and a separate Delta award from your US gateway to your home airport, Delta will not automatically help you if you miss that positioning flight home.
Consider positioning the day before
For major international award tickets, I always prefer positioning the day before my international award. If there is a significant delay or cancellation, I want to have plenty of time to come up with an alternative plan to get to where I need to be.
Personally, I find that this reduces stress significantly. I live about 3-4 hours away from the New York City airports (by car) and even when I plan to drive to one of those airports I prefer to do it the day before my international flight rather than stress about traffic and parking or returning a one-way rental car, etc.
Obviously, positioning the day before comes at the added expense of a hotel room. Personally, I find this can often be a decent use of a credit card free night certificate (and in cases where that isn’t the case, I can usually find a good-enough budget option near a major airport). In my case, since I’m usually traveling with a family of four, the cost of a night at a hotel is a relatively small additional expense divided up per person — and given the added complexity of finding four on another flight if I miss my international award, I find a night at a hotel to be a small price to pay. If you’re a solo traveler, this may be a more significant consideration.
Beyond the stress reduction when arriving a night before my main flight, I prefer positioning the day before because it also gives me the chance to book a backup option.
Consider booking a backup option
These days, most of the major US-based airline programs allow free award cancellation / redeposit (see this post for more information). This makes it possible to consider booking a backup flight on another carrier in case your positioning flight faces a significant delay or cancellation.
For instance, Southwest has always allowed free award cancellation up to about 10 minutes before departure. However, most of the other major US-based programs now have similar policies, so you could book positioning flights on two separate carriers and cancel the option you don’t need once you know that you don’t need it. I don’t always book a backup flight, but in cases where I really must get to the gateway or I’m going to lose a significant international award ticket, I tend to book a backup. I book my backup flight for a significantly different departure time so that I can be absolutely sure that my first choice will get me where I’m going before I cancel the backup.
It is worth noting that some find this practice ethically questionable since you are booking a flight that you don’t intend to take unless your primary plans fall through. The argument could be made that you are entering into the agreement with the airline under false pretenses and/or that you are taking an award seat that some other customer may have wanted to book. Personally, I don’t find this to be an ethical dilemma. The airlines have clearly decided that customers want flexibility and offering flexibility makes them more successful. I think it is smart to take advantage of that flexibility, but you may disagree. Don’t do something you’re not comfortable doing.
See this post for more: Best options for booking backup award flights.
Don’t forget to check award prices at all of the major airlines
Keep in mind that even though a carrier like United or Delta may not make the domestic connecting flight you need available to partners, that doesn’t mean that they may not offer it as an award to their own members. In some cases, you may find that you’ll need to buy the positioning flight as a separate award but it may be very reasonable, particularly if you have access to something like expanded availability for cardmembers or elite members with United or the new Delta award discount for cardholders.
Of course, you’ll sometimes need to consider a positioning flight on some other carrier. Maybe you’re ticketed via United MileagePlus on your major international award but you find a great deal on a Delta award flight to get you to the gateway (or something of that nature). Don’t forget to check around for both paid and award flights on other carriers.
If you don’t have miles in all of the various programs or points to transfer to them, don’t forget to check prices via a credit card portal like the Chase Ultimate Rewards travel portal. If you have the Chase Sapphire Reserve, it might make sense to book your positioning flights using points at a value of 1.5c per point — though keep in mind that in this case you’ll essentially have a revenue ticket and in the case of cancellation of that flight, you may be stuck with a credit that you need to call Chase to use. This can be a pain point.
Should you use money or miles to book a positioning flight?
The answer to this question may depend somewhat on your situation, but I would generally recommend using miles to book your positioning flight as an award ticket.
The reasons for that are plentiful, but the most important one is flexibility. Again, most of the US-based programs offer free cancellation. I value that flexibility in case I decide to cancel my trip and also in case I decide to change my trip. For instance, maybe you’re based in Chicago and you’ve booked a business class award flight from New York to Istanbul via United MileagePlus and a separate flight on American Airlines from Chicago to New York. Then, two months before departure, you realize that the nonstop flight from Chicago to Istanbul is available. Since United will allow a free change or cancellation, you could rebook from Chicago and no longer need the positioning flight. Being able to cancel that positioning flight and redeposit the miles at no cost would be great.
If you book your positioning flight with money and you later need to cancel, you may be able to do so with no fee, but in most cases you’ll be stuck with an airline credit that will only be valid for a year from the date you originally booked the ticket. Worse yet, some airlines will require that the credit only be used to book travel for the same passenger(s) named on the original itinerary. There is far less flexibility with a revenue ticket than an award ticket.
Positioning by land
One-way car rental
Because I am based 3-4 hours by car from the New York City airports, I often “position” to those airports for international flight awards by car. Rather than paying for parking, I usually book a one-way car rental from a location near me for drop-off at the airport.
One-way car rentals can be surprisingly expensive. However, there are ways to significantly reduce the cost.
First is rental car free days. While some car rental companies charge a separate one-way fee, others bake the one-way cost into the rental fee. National Rental Car does the latter, so the rental fee can be quite high for a one-way rental. However, if you have earned a National Free day, a one-way rental can be a great use since that free day reduces the rental fee to $0. Depending on the airport drop-off point, you may be on the hook for a few bucks in taxes, but I have often used National free days for one-ways to position. In the past, National frequently ran a promotion called One Two Free where you would earn a free rental day for every two rentals and I have sometimes booked two cheap one-day car rentals (for $25 or $30 each) just for the purposes of earning a “free” day that I can later use for a one-way positioning ride.
The second thing to keep in mind is any discount codes that may be available to you. Many corporate or organizational codes eliminate the one-way rental fee. Check with your employer for a corporate code you can use, but also keep in mind organizations to which you belong as some will have negotiated car rental codes. Maybe you belong to a professional organization with a code or your university alumni association has a code. It’s worth checking around because you may pay a regular daily rental rate (which could be as low as $20 or $30) with no one-way fee.
Airport hotel parking deals
Some airport hotels often stay & park packages where you pay a small additional fee or a bit more on the nightly rate and they include parking for a certain number of days. You’ll also sometimes find that airport hotels offer parking packages that don’t even require an overnight stay and they can be quite inexpensive. It’s worth checking with hotels near the airport.
Amtrak
You could position by train via Amtrak, but I wouldn’t recommend this unless you live reasonably close to the airport to which you are positioning. Long-haul Amtrak trains sometimes get delayed without warning while on the train — and when you’re on the train stopped in the middle of nowhere waiting for something to be cleared from the tracks ahead (or whatever the case may be), there is no option but to sit and wait. I’d hate to miss my flight while sitting on a train. I enjoy train travel, but this would be my last choice for positioning.
Bottom line
Many times, you’ll find a great award flight, but it won’t be from your home airport. This post is meant to be a primer for booking positioning flights to get to and from your international gateway. A related consideration would be booking flexible awards so that you can change if you later find a great award itinerary departing your home airport, but that’s another consideration for another day. Please feel free to add your own tips for positioning in the comments and we’ll add recommendations and considerations to this post.
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[…] 101: Techniques for getting to your gateway for a great award flight: This post on Frequent Miler is an excellent overview of positioning flights. My family has used this technique […]
I normally flew JAL out of BOS to Tokyo, but I had my first experience with a positioning flight drama since I had an ANA award out of JFK for a recent trip.
When I booked, the ANA flight left at 5pm so I had a morning BOS-JFK flight, but later they changed to a 10:45am departure and taking the 6am out of BOS was not to my liking, so I ended up changing to an afternoon the day before and enjoying the nostalgia at the TWA hotel.
Since the ANA award was First class, an extra $400 for a hotel and flight change didn’t feel like an issue to me.
Regarding parking costs, it’s always a balance between daily parking fees x trip days vs roundtrip Uber/Lyft to the airport fee which makes me decide on if I should just drive to the airport. For me at BOS, it turns out to be about 5 days for the break even cost.
Regarding booking a positioning flight later…. I just had that situation happen on an Alaska Mileage Plan award. I needed to book PPT-SEA-JFK but only PPT-SEA was available at that time. Since I wanted to book it in and I wanted this to be a 2 segment trip (in case agents give me some BS later), I tried a few other cities… and viola, SEA-SFO connection was available. So I booked PPT-SEA-SFO. I set up an alert for SEA-JFK…. And a few weeks later I got a notification it was available. I went on Alaska website and clicked “change reservation”. There was an option to change each leg individually… so I selected only SEA-SFO, in the search field I changed SFO to JFK and availability showed up correctly, I proceeded to check out and all was done in less than 2 min without having to speak to an agent at all.
How did you set an alert for the award availability? Thanks!
expertflyer.com
Good article. I’d add one thing – think of the positioning flight and hotel as part of the trip and not as a necessary evil. We’re flying SFO-SIN in a couple months on SQ J tickets. We’ll spend a night at the Grand Hyatt in San Francisco with dinner at a restaurant that we really like.
I have Sea-Zurich vis IST on Turkish followed by Frankfurt-JFK in SA. Leaving my home in Portland the day before my flight to Zurich staying at the Thompson Seattle and enjoying dinner at a restaurant we like and staying 2 nights in New York (will be our first time in NY!) before a direct flight to PDX unfortunately for now in economy but Singapore business class and 2 days in New York make it worth it!
I found great availability from Rome to my normal southeast city when I fly in there – one-way non-stop (rare) with plenty of saver availability in April. Problem is: we’ll be in France!
So, RyanAir it is: around $45 for the two of us plus bag (to be refunded by my Ritz card) into FCO the night before, with some of my stash of Hilton points for the Garden Inn this time (last time was the other one, which was just ok).
Is there a link to the Delta question that you referenced? I’m in a similar situation flying PIT>JFK and then JFK>BRU, booked separately but both on delta and both booked with Virgin miles. Even if I know they won’t help me with a cancellation/delay , if they agree to merge them I would at least not have to recheck my bag at JFK. On the flip side, if there is a big storm coming and I am worried about the domestic flight I could drive there the day before and skip the first leg – if I merged them that would cancel the more important second leg
Good primer Nick, helpful advice. Regarding adding a segment to an existing Alaska itinerary, I have done it many times before, as recently as last November. You might have to HUCA a couple of times before you find someone who understands what you want, can find the available and correct flight, and then can add it in the right class of service that you want.
Great advice here. I have an upcoming TK award flight out of IAD. Apparently no upside flying UA DFW-IAD. Seems best for me to stick with AA for re-booking options, given more NONSTOP flights from hub (won’t book last flight of the day) and Elite Status (for IROPs).
Have not seen an article titled “What if your big international award flight is cancelled?”.
For example, you will be put on another flight but only if cancelled due to an airline issue? Are you on your own if cancelled due to weather? Not sure what the key factors are here (the ticketing airline vs. the metal flying airline policy or whether you’re departing from US or EU, etc.).
And I’d like to add the importance of doing the positioning flight the day before!
From personal experience my NOT doing that almost ruined my 2 1/2 week trip to Europe. I had a UA ticket from STL-IAH and a separate SIA ticket IAH-MAN-ZRH (all award tickets and in J)
4 hour layover in IAH so plenty of cushion in case my STL-IAH flight was delayed. NOT. Delay. Delay. Delay and then the crew timed out. Missed my flight out of IAH.
Fortunately I found an F flight on United’s WEB site (award ticket) for the next day. STL-ORD-FRA-ZRH. ORD-FRA was LH on their 747 so that part was fun.
I even got my SIA miles back and got lucky when UA paid me back for the close in ticketing fees I paid for the next day trip I had to book AND a refund for my Uber to go back home after the flight was cancelled.
Moral of the story, if it’s an important trip, reposition the day before.
Nick, great article. I use the Denver airport, but it often requires positioning flights. Where do you live? I grew up in Glens Falls/Queensbury. I remember when Allegheny Airlines had commercial service at the nearby airport. Showing my age!
Blowout dream trip coming up next week and it’s been a lot of fun/hassle getting it all set. The original flight I wanted was US-DOH and I managed to snag 2 qsuites IAH-DOH. To get the best pricing I had to book LAX-IAH-DOH. No worries since we live near SLC and needed to position anyway. Tried to later add DOH-DMM but QR wouldn’t ticket the long haul biz segment anymore. Still ok. AA dropped one of the two LAX-IAH nonstop flights, if course the one we were on so now we’re LAX-PHX-IAH-DOH. Since we have to overnight after SLC-LAX we picked up super cheap WN tickets and a Hyatt Regency LAX room for cheap. Then added an expensive BA award RT DOH-DMM (blowout trip, totally worth the splurge). Throw in some more shorter economy awards (DMM-AMM-CAI-LXR/ASW-CAI-JED-DMM) and my geek dream is coming true. IAH-LAS-SLC is less than awesome coming home but gotta sacrifice for the rest of the goodness. 5 different airlines, 9 different planes/models, middle east travel with expat family, QR first and biz lounge visits. We’re going to be wiped out after this but I’m like a kid at Christmas waiting until next week!
All that to say we’ve got positioning flights all set
That’s pretty intense and awesome. I’ve booked revenue flights like that but can’t imagine having to deal with award availability for that routing, nevermind that many people.
It’s some of the worst routing I’ve seen in awhile, but it’s that guy’s trip so more power to him. If AA cancels your flight you don’t have to take the routing the computer assigns you, so calling in and getting a SLC-PHX-IAH routing would probably have been possible. The ‘savings’ are kind of negated by leaving a day early, paying for a hotel and the time suck-of needless connections. If you enjoy flying Southwest, connections and/or airport hotels (some people do) then have at it. I feel bad for people who go out of their way like that just to fly QSuites, it’s nice but it’s not that nice. Different strokes, different folks.
A few notes about this given that I do this on American all the time:
1) some American agents say you have to cancel and rebook when adding a segment. That is false (as of now). Hang up and call again.
2) with that said there are some funky things with finnair flights simply not being able to be added… even if they show. This is not phantom space but rather some glitch with finnair.
3) a published route must exist.. so sometimes adding a segment might seem easy but it’s not. This generally is not a problem in the USA but has been a real pain on super fun/creative itineraries.
4) most importantly… Gary’s post is outdated and not official. I have had great luck with one world protection and also, more recently, been told to pound sand… resulting in having to buy a brand new ticket in the spot despite escalating to every supervisor possible at the airport and the exp desk. The only published information on this is a document for travel agents with very ambiguous language that still is not corrected (several years after publication). At this point I think it’s irresponsible to publish this protection as a given. When it works it’s been a saver. But given my more recent experiences… way too much stress (and expense). Curious if others have experience.
Thanks for the clarification on the AA connection policy. I’ve been using that as gospel and trying to only fly AA when I am booking separate flights. Will be more careful going forward. Curious why sometimes this would work and sometimes it wouldn’t.
Missing the expensive flight because I booked a cheap “gateway” flight is not a good value.
@Nick- Does Air France Flying let you add legs to the gateway city and then onwards to final destination? Thanks