How to Book a Flight with Points
Alternate Strategy: Find Cheap Airfare and Cover with Flexible Points
I think this strategy is very underrated in the points world. Booking a cheap airfare and covering it with points is never going to give you a great "cents per point" redemption when you average it out. But it can be a great way to get somewhere for few points and to even use your points to cover taxes.
For many years, my goal was to get our travel costs as close to $0 as possible and this strategy was great for that. Airfare prices go up and down but a lot of people overestimate the cost of a ticket. It is common to find round trip tickets to Europe in the $400s, for instance, if you're patient and somewhat flexible.
For a $500 flight you could redeem 50,000 points to cover the cost of it. Many other redemptions to Europe would require at minimum 60,000 points round trip and often $200 or more in taxes. You'd actually use fewer points booking this way versus transferring points.
Strategies to find cheap flights
The walkthrough above shows how I search for cheap international fares using Google Flights and Skyscanner.
How many points this costs
With this strategy, your points cost is directly tied to the cash price of the ticket. You don't actually have to book the cheapest flights you find, but the cheapest flights will require the least amount of points. In the past, I used to use Scott's Cheap Flights (now known as Going) for flight alerts but now I just use Google Flights to find cheap international flights.
The value of your points when booking like this depends on the type of points. Capital One Venture miles can be redeemed to cover any travel purchase for 1 cent per point. Chase Ultimate Rewards® can be used to get cash back on your card statement to get 1 cent per point.
If your flights cost $2,000, but you have 100,000 Capital One Venture Miles (worth $1,000), you could pay for your flight with your card and then use the 100,000 Miles to cover those purchases with points.
Pros of this method
- You can book on any airline
- Works for any size group
- Fairly easy to search using Google Flights, Skyscanner, Expedia, etc.
- You can use points for some of the tickets and cash for the rest
- Taxes and fees are included and covered
Cons of this method
- Subject to flight prices
- Doesn't give you bragging rights by claiming you got a great "cents per point" redemption. Your cents per point will almost always be locked at 1 cent per point.
