Plans change. And so does award pricing, for that matter.
If you’ve booked a flight with American Airlines AAdvantage miles, you don’t necessarily need to call to change it. Most award trips can be changed online, whether you need a different flight or happen to stumble across a cheaper option after booking.
There are no change fees, although you’ll pay any increase in miles or taxes. And if the new award happens to cost less, you’ll get the difference back.
Here’s how it works.
How to Change an American Airlines Award Flight Online
Changing an American Airlines award flight online is quick and easy.
American will ask which flight you want to change. Select the applicable flight and confirm that you want to make a change.
On the next screen, you can change any of three things:
Origin
Destination
Date
You don’t have to change all three. If you just want to look for another flight on the same route and date, leave the existing information in place and continue.
AA.COM
American will search for new options much like it would if you were booking a new award ticket. The difference is that it knows what you’ve already paid.
At the top of the results, you’ll see your previous trip value, previous tax value, and available AAdvantage miles. The results below show how much more each new itinerary would cost compared with your existing award.
For example, this trip from Wilmington (ILM) to Porto (OPO) was originally booked for 21,000 AAdvantage miles plus $5.60.
AA.COM
Changing the departure to March 31 would cost another 21,500 miles, while March 28, 29, and 30 show some itineraries with no additional miles required.
Once you’ve found the itinerary you want, select the fare and continue to the confirmation screen. You’ll see any additional miles and taxes due before completing the change. If the new award costs less, you’ll get miles back instead.
The process in the American Airlines app is nearly identical.
What Happens to Your Miles When You Change an Award?
There’s a little more happening behind the scenes than the change screen suggests.
American says it reinstates the miles from the original trip to the AAdvantage account they came from. It then deducts the miles required for the replacement award from that same account, even when the new award costs the same amount.
American also says to allow up to 72 hours for a mileage reinstatement to process. Your AAdvantage balance will update once the reinstatement is complete.
Taxes are settled as part of the change as well. If the new itinerary requires additional taxes, you’ll pay the difference. If you’re owed a refund, American sends it back to the credit card used for the original booking.
After the change is complete, American sends a confirmation email with the new itinerary and ticket number.
SCM JEANS / ISTOCK
Changing Can Be Easier Than Canceling and Rebooking
The online change option is also worth knowing about when you find something better after booking.
American dynamically prices awards on its own flights, so the mileage price can change as the cash fares fluctuate. Most partner awards work differently, although American uses variable pricing for awards on a small number of partners.
If the price drops, you don’t necessarily need to cancel the original award and start over. An online change keeps you within the existing reservation and shows what the new option costs compared with what you’ve already paid. If the replacement costs fewer miles, you’ll get the difference back.
You can do the same thing if a different flight, date, origin, or destination becomes a better option.
American describes online changes as available for “eligible” trips, so you won’t necessarily see the option on every reservation.
American directs travelers to its reservations center for certain awards, including trips that have already started and some itineraries involving partner airlines. Trips affected by circumstances outside your control may also require assistance.
But if your reservation is eligible, you’ll see “Change trip” on the reservation page. From there, you can see what the alternatives cost before confirming anything.
So before canceling an award or calling American, check the reservation online. The change you want to make may only take a few minutes.
If you’ve spent any time reading about points and miles, you’ve probably seen some enormous numbers.
Earn 75,000 points. Earn 100,000 points. Earn 150,000 points. Apply for this card. Transfer points here. Book this business class seat that normally costs $8,000.
Some of that can be useful. But it can also make getting started much harder than it needs to be.
If you want to use points to travel more or spend less on the trips you’re already taking, you don’t need to begin by figuring out which credit card has the biggest welcome offer. You don’t need to become a frequent flyer, either.
You should, however, start with the trip itself.
Where do you want to go? Who do you want to visit? Which trips are getting too expensive? What would you do if airfare or hotels cost a little less?
Once you know what you want points to accomplish, you can figure out which rewards could help you do it and how to earn them.
That’s a points strategy.
And it can be a lot simpler than the internet makes it look.
What Does Traveling With Points Mean?
Airlines and hotel companies have loyalty programs that are free to join. American Airlines has AAdvantage, United Airlines has MileagePlus, Marriott has Bonvoy, Hyatt has World of Hyatt, and so on.
Each program has its own rewards currency that’s called some variation of points or miles. And once you have enough, you can use those rewards to book travel instead of paying the full cash price.
OZGYRCANKAYA / ISTOCK
Say you want to visit family and the round-trip flight costs $500. You might find that the same trip can also be booked for 20,000 airline miles plus $5.60 in taxes.
You have a choice. Pay $500 or use miles and keep most of that cash in your pocket.
The ticket booked with miles is called an award ticket. Hotels work much the same way. A room selling for $300 might also be available for 25,000 hotel points.
That’s the foundation of points travel. You’re earning another type of currency that can be used to pay for some of your travel.
And despite the name, you do not need to be a frequent flyer to participate in a frequent flyer program.
You can join an airline loyalty program even if you fly once or twice a year. You don’t need elite status, and you don’t have to regularly fly an airline to earn its miles.
Plenty of miles are earned without going anywhere.
You Don’t Have to Travel to Earn Points
Flying can earn airline miles, and hotel stays can earn hotel points. But those are just two ways rewards make their way into your accounts.
Airlines and hotels have partnerships that let you earn points through things you may already be doing.
Shopping portals are a good example. Instead of going directly to a retailer’s website, you start at an airline’s shopping portal and click through to the same store. If the retailer is participating, your purchase can earn airline miles in addition to whatever rewards you were already getting from the purchase.
Airlines also have dining programs that can award miles when you eat at participating restaurants. There are promotions, rental car partnerships, hotel offers, and plenty of other opportunities to pick up rewards along the way.
Credit cards are another way to earn them.
MILORAD KRAVIC / ISTOCK
Some cards earn rewards with a particular airline or hotel company. A Marriott card earns Marriott Bonvoy points, for example, while an airline card earns miles in that airline’s program.
Other cards earn rewards through programs run by banks such as American Express, Capital One, Chase, and Citi. Those points can work differently because you may have more than one way to use them.
We’ll get to that.
For now, know that you don’t need to choose between flying constantly and opening credit cards. Points can come from travel, everyday spending, shopping, dining, promotions, and other parts of the loyalty ecosystem.
The more important question is which points make sense for you to earn.
Start With Where You Want to Go
Before applying for a new credit card, signing up for every loyalty program you can find, or chasing a particular kind of point, think about your travel.
What would you like points to help you do?
Maybe you want to fly to see your kids more often, but tickets routinely cost $500. Maybe you’re trying to take a family of four to Europe next summer. Perhaps you mostly take road trips, and hotels are the expense you’d most like to reduce.
Or maybe there isn’t one big trip. You’d just like to take another weekend away every once in a while without every trip putting a dent in the monthly budget.
Those goals can lead to very different strategies.
PYORSKY / ISTOCK
Imagine you visit family three times per year and airfare typically costs $500 round trip. That’s $1,500 per person each year for a trip you already know you want to take.
If those flights can sometimes be booked for a reasonable number of miles instead, you’ve found a job for points. Your goal isn’t to accumulate a million miles or recreate somebody else’s business class trip from Instagram. It’s to make those family visits less expensive.
Someone trying to take four people to Europe has a different problem. So does someone whose biggest travel expense is hotels.
Figure out the travel first. Then work backward.
Don’t Let Someone Else Pick Your Points Strategy
This is where it’s worth being skeptical of some of what you read online.
There are excellent websites, newsletters, and creators covering points and miles. There are also a lot of headlines telling you that a 100,000-point credit card offer is incredible and that you should apply before it disappears.
Sometimes it is a very good offer.
But a big number doesn’t tell you whether those points will help with the trips you want to take.
Credit cards are part of the points ecosystem, and you’ll find information about them on PointsYeah, too. But it’s also important to understand the incentives at work. Websites can earn money when readers apply for cards through their links, which is worth remembering when every new offer starts to sound like something you can’t afford to miss.
That doesn’t mean you should ignore the experts. It means their strategy doesn’t automatically need to become yours.
A 100,000-point offer could be nearly useless for your travel. A much less exciting opportunity to earn rewards that repeatedly save you $500 on trips to see family could be far more valuable.
Start with your game, not theirs.
Look at How You Travel Now and How You Want to Travel
The rewards you’re earning today may not line up with the travel you want to do tomorrow.
Suppose you tend to fly Frontier or Allegiant because they’re inexpensive from your home airport. There’s nothing wrong with that. Sometimes buying the cheap ticket is exactly the right move.
But what happens when you want to visit somewhere those airlines don’t fly?
Say you want to visit family in Wilmington, North Carolina. If the airline whose rewards you’ve been collecting doesn’t serve Wilmington, those points aren’t going to solve that particular problem.
SEAN PAVONE / ISTOCK
The same mismatch can happen with hotels.
You might put most of your everyday spending on a Marriott credit card and have a large balance of Marriott Bonvoy points. That’s useful if hotel stays are a major part of your travel.
But what if what you really want to do is fly more, and you tend to stay with family once you arrive?
You’re earning plenty of rewards. They’re just not necessarily helping with the expense that’s keeping you from taking more trips.
That doesn’t make Frontier miles or Marriott points bad rewards. It means every reward currency has things it’s useful for and things it can’t do.
Think about the places you visit today and the places you’d like to visit. Which airlines can get you there? Which ones serve your home airport? Do you spend more on flights or hotels? Are there trips you keep putting off because one part of them is especially expensive?
You’re beginning to identify which rewards might fit your travel.
Having More Than One Option Can Help
You don’t need to collect points with every airline and hotel program.
Spreading a few thousand points across a dozen accounts can leave you with a lot of balances that aren’t large enough to book much of anything.
But being locked into one corner of the travel world has its own drawbacks.
ANYABERKUT / ISTOCK
If all of your rewards are hotel points, they can’t do much when airfare is keeping you home. If all of your miles sit with one airline, you’re relying on that airline to serve the places you want to go and offer flights that work when you need them.
This is one reason some credit card rewards are useful.
Instead of earning points that immediately belong to one airline or hotel company, certain cards earn rewards that stay within the bank’s own rewards program. Depending on the program, you may later be able to move those points to one of several participating airline or hotel loyalty programs.
Suppose you have 50,000 points with a credit card rewards program. Months later, you’re planning a trip and find a flight that can be booked for 20,000 miles through one of that program’s airline partners.
You may be able to move 20,000 of your credit card points into the airline’s loyalty program and then use the resulting miles to book the flight.
Until you do that, the points haven’t been committed to that particular airline.
You’ll often hear these called transferable points. You may also see the term flexible points, which simply means the rewards give you multiple potential ways to use them rather than tying you to one airline or hotel from the beginning.
That can be useful if your trips don’t all follow the same pattern. The airline that gets you to your parents might be completely different from the one that works for your summer vacation.
You don’t need transferable points to travel with rewards. They’re one tool that can give you more choices.
Once you’ve thought about the travel you want to take, see what you’re already working with.
You may have more rewards than you realize.
Check any airline loyalty programs you’ve joined in the past, even if you don’t fly often. Look at hotel accounts you’ve used. Then check the rewards section of the credit cards already in your wallet.
Make a simple list. It might look like this:
15,000 American Airlines AAdvantage miles
55,000 Marriott Bonvoy points
40,000 points with a credit card rewards program
Don’t worry about assigning a dollar value to every balance. You’re trying to answer two simpler questions.
MSTUDIOIMAGES / ISTOCK
What do I have, and can any of it help with the travel I want to take?
If your goal is flying to see family, the airline miles may be immediately relevant. The Marriott points could be useful for another trip but may not help much if you stay with family when you visit. The credit card points could create additional options depending on the program.
And if you discover that you have almost nothing, that’s fine.
Starting with zero and knowing where you want to go can be more useful than starting with 100,000 points you don’t know what to do with.
PointsYeah’s My Wallet can also help you keep track of rewards in one place, including balances you’ve entered manually and supported accounts you connect.
You know the kinds of trips you want to take. You know which travel expenses you’d like points to help cover, and you’ve taken stock of the rewards you already have.
What’s missing?
Maybe you want to visit family three times a year and have learned that a certain type of airline mile could help with those flights. Perhaps you want to take a bigger trip next summer and would rather have rewards that give you several airline options. Or maybe you’ve spent years accumulating hotel points when airfare is the part of travel you’d really like help paying for.
Now you have a reason to decide what you want to earn next.
MARTIN DM / ISTOCK
That could mean earning miles on flights you’re already taking, clicking through a shopping portal before a purchase, joining a dining program, or watching for promotions.
It could also mean deciding that a credit card makes sense.
A welcome offer can provide a large number of rewards after you meet its requirements, and spending on the card can continue earning points afterward. But by this point in the process, you’re not choosing a card because 100,000 POINTS sounded impressive.
You’re asking whether those 100,000 points can help with your travel.
A credit card can be a useful earning tool. It isn’t the strategy by itself.
Then See What Your Points Can Do
Eventually, all of this needs to turn into a trip.
Airlines let you search their websites for flights that can be booked with miles, just as you’d search for a ticket you were buying with cash. Hotels let you search for rooms that can be booked with points.
These are called award searches.
You could go to each airline or hotel website individually. The challenge is that one trip can sometimes be booked through several loyalty programs, each with its own points price and rules.
This is where PointsYeah can make the process easier.
With a PointsYeah flight search, you enter where you’re leaving from, where you want to go, and when you’d like to travel. PointsYeah searches the supported airline loyalty programs and shows you available options that can be booked with points or miles.
Think of it as the points version of searching for a flight with cash.
If you wanted to fly from Raleigh-Durham (RDU) to New York, for example, you’d enter Raleigh-Durham as your starting point, New York as your destination, and your travel date. The results show which supported loyalty programs have options and how many points or miles they require.
You don’t need to understand every program that appears on the screen. Start by seeing what’s possible.
If you don’t know where you want to go yet, Daydream Explorer starts from a different question. Tell it where you’re leaving from and explore destinations you could reach with points. That’s useful when the goal is something broad like “We want to go somewhere warm in February” rather than “We need to be in Hawaii on June 12.”
Maybe the ticket costs $500 in cash, but you find an option for 20,000 miles plus $5.60 in taxes. If spending $500 is what’s making you hesitate to take the trip, those miles can be extremely useful.
On another weekend, the same route might cost $150 while the airline still wants 20,000 miles. You might decide to spend the $150 and keep the miles for the next expensive trip.
This is where points advice can get unnecessarily mathematical.
You’ll see websites assign monetary values to different kinds of points and calculate whether a redemption produces a certain number of cents per point. That can be useful for comparing options, but it doesn’t need to dictate whether a redemption makes sense for you.
If using points means you can make a trip you otherwise wouldn’t take, that matters. If cash is cheap and you’d rather save the points, that matters too.
Look at what you’d otherwise pay, what the award costs, what you have available, and which resource you’d rather spend.
DRAZEN ZIGIC / ISTOCK
And don’t assume points need to cover the entire trip.
Maybe you have enough miles for two of the four tickets your family needs. Perhaps you pay cash for a cheap flight out and use miles when the return is expensive. You could buy the airfare and use hotel points once you arrive.
Sometimes points will save you hundreds or thousands of dollars. Sometimes paying cash will make more sense.
Both can be part of the same strategy.
Your Points Strategy Is Yours
The deeper you get into points and miles, the more opinions you’ll encounter.
Someone will tell you which credit card you need. Someone else will tell you which airline program has the “best” redemptions. You’ll see people flying business class around the world and others squeezing every possible mile out of shopping portals, promotions, and credit card spending.
There’s plenty to learn from all of them.
But they don’t necessarily want to take the same trips you do.
If your goal is to fly to see your kids more often, build around that. If you want to take your family to Europe, start there. If you’d like to take more weekend trips but don’t particularly care where you go, that’s something you can build around too.
Figure out which rewards can help with the travel you want to take. See what you already have. Then decide how you want to earn what’s missing, whether that’s through flying, shopping, credit cards, or some combination over time.
The goal isn’t to become an expert at points. It’s to make points useful for the way you want to travel.
If you’re booking a long-haul flight, there’s a growing chance you’ll see an aircraft you may not associate with flying across an ocean: the Airbus A321XLR.
American Airlines is already flying the aircraft, while Iberia and Aer Lingus are among the airlines using it across the Atlantic. United Airlines and Air Canada have also taken delivery of their first XLRs, and plenty of other airlines are already operating the aircraft or planning to add it to their fleets.
At a high level, the A321XLR takes an aircraft that looks a lot like one you might fly from New York to Florida and gives it the ability to fly much farther. Airbus says the XLR can fly for up to 11 hours. It uses routes such as Orlando to Paris and Dallas to Lisbon as examples of what’s possible.
That puts a single-aisle aircraft on some of the same long-haul routes traditionally associated with much larger planes. The experience isn’t necessarily better or worse, but it is different.
What Is the Airbus A321XLR?
The A321XLR is the longest-range version of Airbus’ popular A321neo family. XLR stands for Extra Long Range.
The easiest way to understand it is to think of the XLR as a smaller aircraft capable of doing some of what airlines traditionally needed a widebody to do.
ANTONIO PIRRO / ISTOCK
It still has one aisle, and economy is generally arranged with three seats on either side. But airlines can also install premium economy and lie-flat business-class seats, along with the entertainment, Wi-Fi, and other features travelers have come to expect on long-haul flights.
But in many ways, it’s a squeezed-down version of the widebody experience.
And long flights aren’t the only place you’ll find one. American, for example, also uses its A321XLR on transcontinental routes from New York (JFK) and Boston (BOS) to California, giving the airline more ways to put the highly efficient aircraft to work.
Long-Haul Flights on an A321 Aren’t Entirely New
The A321XLR isn’t the first version of the A321 to cross the Atlantic.
JetBlue, Aer Lingus, TAP Air Portugal, and other airlines have been flying the A321LR, or Long Range, across the Atlantic for years. If you’ve flown JetBlue from the East Coast to Europe, for example, there’s a chance you’ve already spent a long flight aboard a single-aisle A321.
The XLR pushes that idea farther. Its additional range comes in part from an extra fuel tank, giving airlines more flexibility to connect cities that might be difficult to serve with an A321LR and don’t necessarily need a larger aircraft.
So while the XLR is getting plenty of attention, long-haul flying on an A321 isn’t particularly new.
What Is It Like to Spend Several Hours on an A321XLR?
This is probably the question that matters more than how Airbus managed to make the aircraft fly farther.
TYLER GLATT / POINTS INSIDER
In economy, the cabin will look fairly familiar. Most airlines use a 3-3 configuration, with three seats on each side of a single aisle. What changes is how long you’re sitting in it.
There’s less room to move around than on a larger two-aisle aircraft. Passengers heading to the lavatory, flight attendants working the cabin, and anyone trying to stretch their legs are all sharing the same aisle.
TYLER GLATT / POINTS INSIDER
Up front, airlines have found creative ways to fit a long-haul premium experience into the narrower cabin. Depending on the carrier, you might find lie-flat seats in a 1-1 layout or staggered configurations that create especially spacious “throne” seats in certain rows.
The result can feel like a condensed version of flying on a widebody such as a Boeing 777 or 787 or an Airbus A330 or A350. An XLR can still have multiple cabins, lie-flat seats, premium economy, seatback entertainment, and Wi-Fi, but everything has to fit within the narrower fuselage.
The experience can also vary quite a bit between airlines.
United is putting just 150 seats on its XLRs, while American has 155. Both include 20 lie-flat business-class seats and 12 dedicated premium economy seats. Iberia and Aer Lingus fit more than 180 seats on theirs.
That’s a wide range for the same aircraft.
TYLER GLATT / POINTS INSIDER
Why Are Airlines Flying Smaller Aircraft Across the Atlantic?
This is where the XLR gets more interesting for travelers.
Not every city pair can support a Boeing 787 or Airbus A350 full of passengers every day. An A321XLR gives airlines a way to serve long-distance markets with fewer seats, which can make new nonstop routes possible or support existing routes where demand doesn’t justify a larger aircraft.
We’re already seeing that play out.
American’s latest international expansion leans heavily on the A321XLR, including new service to destinations such as Vienna and Porto. United is also using the aircraft to expand its international network. It added several new XLR routes that take advantage of both the jet’s range and smaller size.
How to Know What You’re Booking
Airlines don’t always make aircraft types particularly easy to decipher.
Some will spell out Airbus A321XLR during the booking process, while others use equipment codes. American, for example, displays its aircraft as 32Q-Airbus A321XLR.
AA.COM
PointsYeah shows the scheduled aircraft when you open the details for a flight, although closely related A321 versions may sometimes be grouped together.
You might see Airbus A321neo/LR/XLR, for example, rather than a definitive XLR designation.
POINTSYEAH
You can also pull up the seat map in PointsYeah. That can be more useful than the aircraft name alone, especially if you want to see the cabin layout or where your preferred seats are located.
If the seat you want isn’t available, you can also set a Seat Alert and PointsYeah will let you know if it opens up.
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If the exact version matters, check the operating airline’s website as well. Aircraft assignments can also change before departure, so the plane scheduled when you book isn’t guaranteed to be the one waiting at the gate.
Ultimately, the A321XLR isn’t something travelers need to seek out or avoid. But it is worth knowing what those letters mean when they appear on an itinerary.
You could be crossing an ocean on an aircraft that feels noticeably smaller than the widebodies traditionally used for the trip. But at the same time, the XLR’s smaller size and long range are giving airlines more opportunities to fly routes they might not otherwise operate.
If you want to know where people traveled this summer, those numbers aren’t particularly hard to find.
Airlines know how many passengers they carried. Hotels know how many rooms they filled. Tourism boards spend plenty of time counting visitors.
All of those numbers tell us where people went. Award searches tell us something different. They show where people were thinking about going next.
PointsYeah analyzed millions of award searches made between June 1 and August 15, 2026, to see which international routes travelers searched most often. Not every search turns into a trip, of course. But in the aggregate, they offer a fascinating snapshot of what travelers had on their minds this summer.
And routes to one part of the world appeared far more often than anywhere else.
Where Travelers Were Searching Abroad This Summer
Here are the 20 international routes that appeared most often in award searches made through PointsYeah this summer.
One thing to keep in mind is that each direction is counted separately. Someone searching Seoul (ICN) to Los Angeles (LAX), for example, may be looking for the return flight of a trip that started in Los Angeles.
Ranking
Route
1
Los Angeles (LAX) → Tokyo (TYO)
2
New York City (NYC) → Tel Aviv (TLV)
3
San Francisco (SFO) → Tokyo (TYO)
4
New York City (NYC) → Tokyo (TYO)
5
Seattle (SEA) → Tokyo (TYO)
6
San Francisco (SFO) → Taipei (TPE)
7
Los Angeles (LAX) → Taipei (TPE)
8
Chicago (ORD) → Tokyo (TYO)
9
London (LON) → New York City (NYC)
10
Seoul (ICN) → Los Angeles (LAX)
11
Athens (ATH) → New York City (NYC)
12
Hong Kong (HKG) → San Francisco (SFO)
13
Hong Kong (HKG) → Los Angeles (LAX)
14
Seattle (SEA) → Taipei (TPE)
15
New York City (NYC) → Taipei (TPE)
16
Seoul (ICN) → San Francisco (SFO)
17
Seoul (ICN) → Seattle (SEA)
18
Hong Kong (HKG) → New York City (NYC)
19
Delhi (DEL) → San Francisco (SFO)
20
Paris (CDG) → Los Angeles (LAX)
It doesn’t take much studying to spot the pattern.
Tokyo Is Extremely Popular
Tokyo appears five times in the top 20 most-searched international routes, more than any other destination.
The searches came from across the U.S.: Los Angeles (LAX), San Francisco (SFO), New York City (NYC), Seattle (SEA), and Chicago (ORD).
Different starting points, same destination.
Japan’s popularity isn’t exactly a new phenomenon. International visitors have returned in enormous numbers in recent years. For Americans, increased airline capacity across the Pacific has also made the country easier to reach from more cities.
Then there are the reasons that don’t fit neatly into an airline schedule. The favorable exchange rate. The food. The rail network. The mix of enormous cities, smaller towns, culture, and nature that makes it relatively easy to build several very different trips around one country.
For some, Japan has also become less of a once-in-a-lifetime destination and more of a place worth returning to.
And the search patterns suggest plenty are still trying to get there.
SEANPAVONEPHOTO / ISTOCK
Japan Was Only Part of the Story
Fourteen of the 20 most-searched international routes connected North America with destinations in Asia.
Taipei appears four times. Seoul and Hong Kong each appear three times. Delhi makes the list as well. Just beyond the top 20 were searches involving Bangkok, Singapore, Ho Chi Minh City, and other destinations throughout the region.
That’s a much bigger story than Japan alone.
There isn’t one clear-cut type of trip tying those places together, either. Some are enormous business and aviation hubs. Some draw travelers for food and history. Others have become popular jumping-off points for exploring elsewhere in the region.
What stands out is how often the same Asian destinations appear from different North American cities.
SEANPAVONEPHOTO / ISTOCK
Europe Is More Complicated
Only three European cities appear among the top 20 routes, with London, Athens, and Paris making the list. But that doesn’t necessarily mean travelers were less interested in Europe.
North America has far more nonstop routes to Europe than it does across the Pacific. That spreads searches for Europe across more city pairs, while searches for Asia are more likely to pile up on a smaller number of major routes.
So the regional comparison isn’t quite as simple as the top 20 makes it look. What is clear is that individual routes to Asia, particularly Japan, repeatedly rose to the top.
Then there’s the route sitting at No. 2.
New York City (NYC) to Tel Aviv (TLV) ranks behind only Los Angeles (LAX) to Tokyo, placing it ahead of every other route involving Tokyo, Taipei, Seoul, Hong Kong, or Europe.
It’s the most notable outlier in the top 20.
Searches Capture the Trip Before the Trip
Award searches aren’t bookings.
Someone can search Tokyo today, Paris tomorrow, and Bangkok the day after that. The award seats they find might disappear. Their dates might change. They may decide the trip is too expensive or get cold feet and go somewhere else.
But that uncertainty is also what makes the data interesting.
Passenger statistics capture travelers after they’ve made their decisions. Search data catches them earlier, while they’re still considering all the possibilities.
For this stretch of summer, individual routes to Asia dominated the top of the list, with Japan standing out most. The rankings don’t tell us that Asia was more popular than Europe overall, but they do show where searches were most concentrated.
Eventually, that’ll change.
Holiday travel will replace summer vacations. Ski destinations will start appearing more frequently. Before long, travelers will be searching for spring break and summer 2027. And we’ll soon get another look at where everyone wants to go next.
DOCTOREGG / ISTOCK
Where to Next?
If there’s one practical takeaway from the rankings, it’s that plenty of other travelers may be looking for the same trip you are.
Award availability can change quickly, particularly around busy travel periods. Searching earlier gives you more time to compare dates, airports, and programs before committing to a trip.
And if a destination on this list has you thinking about somewhere new, that’s probably reason enough to take a look.
Frontier Airlines is adding more benefits for its elite members next year. And some of them sound a lot more like what you’d expect from a full-service airline.
Beginning in 2027, every level of Frontier Miles elite status will come with a chance at a complimentary upgrade to UpFront Plus or the airline’s forthcoming First Class seats. That includes Silver, Frontier’s entry-level elite tier.
Frontier is also reshuffling how members qualify for status. Diamond is getting 25% easier to earn, while the requirements for Silver and Gold are going up.
The changes come as Frontier continues to stretch beyond its ultra-low-cost roots. First Class, upgrades, a more comprehensive loyalty program, and Starlink Wi-Fi are all things that would have sounded almost unthinkable just a few years ago for an airline known for selling fares for less than $20.
First Class Upgrades Are Coming to Every Elite Tier
Frontier plans to introduce First Class later this year. It’s in the process of installing two-by-two seating at the front of its aircraft.
Starting in 2027, every Frontier Miles elite tier will have a chance to upgrade into First Class or UpFront Plus (a handful of rows where the middle seat is kept empty). The benefit will be available to elite members who purchase an Economy or Premium bundle.
How early that chance comes depends on status. Silver members become eligible for upgrades four hours before departure, followed by Gold at eight hours, Platinum at 18 hours, and Diamond at 24 hours.
There are other improvements coming for elites, too. Platinum members will receive a free checked bag for everyone on their reservation. Diamond members will get two.
Frontier is also introducing Milestone Rewards in 2027, although it hasn’t revealed what those rewards will include yet.
CERI BREEZE / ISTOCK
Frontier Is Reshuffling How You Earn Elite Status
Frontier isn’t making every level of status easier to earn.
Starting September 1, the requirement for Diamond will drop from 100,000 Elite Status Points to 75,000. Anyone who reaches 75,000 points in 2026 will earn Diamond status for 2027.
But starting January 1, the requirement for Silver will increase from 10,000 to 15,000 points, while Gold will move from 20,000 to 25,000. Platinum will stay at 50,000 points.
Frontier is also adjusting how members earn miles and Elite Status Points on tickets purchased beginning September 1. Travelers buying Economy, Premium, or Business bundles will earn at higher rates, and Frontier cardmembers can earn even more.
The end result is a loyalty program that’s raising the bar at the bottom while making its top status easier to reach and more rewarding to hold.
That’s an interesting direction for an airline built around low fares and charging separately for much of everything else. The irony is that the more you spend with Frontier, the fewer of those extras you’ll have to pay for.
Delta flyers have a new opportunity to pick up a substantial number of SkyMiles.
American Express rolled out elevated welcome offers across its lineup of Delta credit cards, with the largest offering up to 200,000 bonus SkyMiles.
That’s enough to get our attention. But the amount of miles isn’t the only thing worth considering.
Each card comes with a different annual fee, spending requirement, and set of Delta benefits, so it helps to start with what you actually want from the card and where those miles could take you.
Elevated Delta Amex Welcome Offers Are Available
There are elevated offers across both the personal and business Delta card lineups. Click “Learn More” on any card below to see the full offer and application details.
Delta Personal Credit Cards
Delta offers three personal cards with elevated welcome offers, ranging from the Gold to the more premium Platinum and Reserve cards.
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Delta Business Credit Cards
Business owners have three options as well, with elevated offers available on the Gold, Platinum, and Reserve Business cards.
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Think About Where the Miles Could Take You
A big welcome offer is only useful if the miles help you take a trip you actually want to take.
Delta doesn’t publish an award chart (a reference showing how many miles an award should cost). Instead, award prices can vary considerably depending on the route and date.
Before applying for a card primarily for the welcome offer, it’s worth seeing what Delta is charging for trips you’re interested in taking.
You can search Delta SkyMiles award availability directly through PointsYeah, along with other supported airline programs. That gives you a better idea of what the miles could get you before deciding how useful a particular welcome offer would be.
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And if you end up with one of these Delta cards, there’s another benefit when it’s time to use those miles.
A perk called “TakeOff 15” gives eligible cardholders at least 15% off the mileage price of eligible Delta-operated award flights. There’s no limit to how many times you can use the benefit, and the discount appears when you’re logged into the SkyMiles account associated with an eligible card.
The elevated welcome offers won’t be around forever. But whether one is right for you ultimately depends on where those miles can take you.
If you have an eligible Delta credit card, there’s a good chance your next Delta award flight will cost fewer miles than the advertised price.
That’s thanks to TakeOff 15.
This is a benefit that gives eligible Delta American Express cardholders 15% off award flights operated by Delta. The discount is automatic, there’s nothing to activate, and there’s no limit to how many times you can use it.
It’s a surprisingly useful benefit that takes no extra effort to use.
How Delta TakeOff 15 Works
TakeOff 15 is available to primary cardholders of the personal and business versions of the Delta Gold, Platinum, and Reserve American Express cards.
To use the benefit, log into the SkyMiles account associated with your eligible card and search for an award flight on Delta.com or the Fly Delta app. The discount should automatically appear on eligible flights.
DELTA.COM
Put differently, if an award normally costs 15,100 SkyMiles, a 15% discount brings it down to 12,800 miles, since Delta likes to round down. On a 412,300-mile award (pricey), you’d save more than 60,000 miles.
That’s pretty wild.
The discount only applies to the mileage portion of the ticket, so you’ll still pay the normal taxes and fees.
There’s no guarantee that a discounted Delta award will be the best option for every trip. But if Delta has the flight you want and you’re planning to use SkyMiles, TakeOff 15 means you can keep 15% of those miles for another trip.
American Airlines is adding seven international routes in 2027, and its Airbus A321XLR will be flying several of them.
Four of the routes announced Thursday will use the long-range narrowbody. That includes brand-new service to Vienna and Porto, along with new flights from New York (JFK) to Amsterdam and Nice.
The A321XLR has been flying for American for less than a year, starting with transcontinental flights before heading across the Atlantic to Edinburgh. Those early routes offered a small preview of what American had planned for the jet.
But its 2027 schedule is giving us a much better idea of what’s ahead.
American’s New International Routes for 2027
American’s expansion includes three destinations joining or returning to its network, plus several new routes to cities it already serves from other gateways.
Some were announced earlier this year, while others are new as of Thursday.
Route
Starts
Aircraft
Chicago (ORD) → Tokyo Narita (NRT)
March 19
Boeing 787-9
New York (JFK) → Amsterdam (AMS)
March 28
Airbus A321XLR
Philadelphia (PHL) → Porto (OPO)
March 28
Airbus A321XLR
New York (JFK) → Nice (NCE)
May 6
Airbus A321XLR
Philadelphia (PHL) → Vienna (VIE)
May 6
Airbus A321XLR
Charlotte (CLT) → Barcelona (BCN)
May 27
Boeing 777-200ER
Philadelphia (PHL) → Reykjavik (KEF)
May 27
Airbus A321neo
Vienna and Porto will be entirely new destinations for American. Reykjavik returns to the airline’s network for the first time since 2019.
Elsewhere, American is bringing back Charlotte to Barcelona and adding new service from New York to Amsterdam and Nice. The Chicago to Tokyo Narita route was previously announced in July but is still included in American’s seven-route expansion for 2027.
There are a few other schedule changes coming next year. American will add a fourth daily flight between New York and London Heathrow (LHR), while seasonal Charlotte to Paris (CDG) and Miami to Milan (MXP) service will extend into early January 2028.
Tickets were supposed to go on sale Monday, August 31, but went on sale a day early.
Four of the seven routes will be flown by an aircraft that carries just 155 passengers.
That’s considerably fewer seats than you’ll find on the Boeing 787s and 777s that do much of American’s long-haul flying. But the A321XLR can still cross the Atlantic. It’s outfitted with 20 Flagship Suite business class seats, 12 Premium Economy seats, and 123 seats in economy.
For American, that means having a smaller aircraft it can send on long international routes without giving up business class or Premium Economy.
TYLER GLATT / POINTS INSIDER
The 2027 schedule shows how American can put that flexibility to work. The XLR can open new destinations like Vienna and Porto or add another U.S. gateway to cities already on the map, as American is doing with Amsterdam and Nice.
There are plenty more XLRs coming, too. American has dozens still on order. That could mean more niche European routes or flights to new destinations in South America.
For passengers, there is one very big tradeoff. More long-haul XLR routes also mean more opportunities to spend a transatlantic flight on a single-aisle aircraft.
Whether that matters probably depends on where you’re sitting.
SWISS has been spending heavily on the passenger experience, and some of that investment is now coming to its home airport.
The airline announced plans to open new Business and Senator Lounges at Zurich Airport (ZRH) in the first quarter of 2027. Combined, the new lounges will span around 28,000 square feet (2,600 square meters), giving SWISS a lounge footprint that’s about 20% larger than the three lounges it currently operates in Dock A.
SWISS said last year that it invests around CHF 1 billion annually in improving the travel experience. So far, that investment has been most visible in the air. Last year, the airline debuted its new SWISS Senses cabins on the Airbus A350. And more recently, it kicked off a lengthy retrofit process to bring the new onboard product to its Airbus A330s and Boeing 777s as well.
But while that’s happening, SWISS is continuing to focus on the ground in Zurich.
New SWISS Lounges Are Coming to Dock B
The new Business and Senator Lounges will take shape in Dock B, where they’ll occupy separate floors of a building on the southern side of the dock.
There’s a reason they’re moving. Zurich Airport is preparing to replace Dock A, and the new building at Dock B will temporarily house some of the infrastructure displaced during construction.
The five-story modular building will initially include lounges and bus gates, along with some Airside Centre logistics. Construction began in May 2025, and the opening is expected in early 2027.
RENDERING OF THE NEW SWISS BUSINESS LOUNGE AT ZURICH AIRPORT / SWISS
Inside, both lounges will feature more seating and dedicated areas for working and relaxing. Across the two spaces, SWISS plans to offer around 20 fully soundproofed workstations.
RENDERING OF THE NEW SWISS BUSINESS LOUNGE AT ZURICH AIRPORT / SWISS
Large windows should bring plenty of natural light into both lounges.
The Senator Lounge will get a few extras of its own. A bar along the windows will offer a 180-degree view of Runway 34, the apron, and the Alps. SWISS also plans to add a wine humidor and a dedicated maturation room for selected cheeses and cured meats.
It doesn’t get much more Swiss than that.
The Existing Dock A Lounges Will Close
Once the new spaces open in the first quarter of 2027, the current Business and Senator Lounges will close, along with the SWISS Alpine Lounge.
The Alpine Lounge offers a more casual take on the SWISS lounge experience, with chalet-inspired design and an open kitchen.
But the concept isn’t disappearing entirely.
SWISS confirmed to Points Insider that while the Alpine Lounge won’t continue as a standalone lounge, selected elements will carry over to the new lounges. The airline says the Alpine Lounge will also serve as inspiration for the new spaces.
The First and HON Circle Lounge will stick around a little longer. SWISS plans to keep it open in Dock A until 2028, when it will also move to Dock B. The airline hasn’t shared details about what that lounge will look like.
Meanwhile, Zurich Airport expects construction on the new Dock A to begin in 2027. It will be built just north of the existing dock, allowing the current facility to remain open until the new one is ready.
For passengers, the end result is what matters most. Starting next year, there will be more room to work, eat, or watch airplanes before a SWISS or partner flight from Zurich.
And apparently, somewhere for the cheese to mature, too.
Airlines and hotels regularly sell points and miles with bonuses or discounts. And some promotions can bring the cost down significantly.
Sometimes, buying points or miles for the trip you want to take can even cost less than paying the going cash price.
Whether you’re topping off an account for an award you’ve already found, planning ahead for a trip, or simply waiting for a better offer, it helps to know what’s available now and how it compares with what we’ve seen before.
PointsYeah automatically tracks current offers for buying airline miles and hotel points below, along with each program’s recent promotion history.
Current Buy Points and Miles Offers
Here are the current promotions for buying airline miles and hotel points. The tables below automatically update as new offers begin and existing ones expire.
Note that some promotions are targeted, so you may see a different bonus or discount after logging into your loyalty account. Always confirm the offer and final purchase price before buying.
Active airline buy miles offers
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Active hotel buy points offers
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Before You Buy Points or Miles
There’s more to a good buy points or miles promotion than the headline bonus or discount.
Each loyalty program sets its own price, so a 100% bonus from one program isn’t necessarily a better deal than a 50% bonus from another. The final purchase price matters more, and the historical tables below can help you see whether the current offer is especially good or something that comes around regularly.
It also helps to know how you plan to use the points or miles before buying them. If you’re a few thousand miles short of an award, buying the difference can be an easy way to get what you need. In other cases, buying enough points for an entire flight or hotel stay can cost less than paying cash.
If you’re buying airline miles for a particular trip, search for the award first. Availability can change quickly, and you don’t want to buy miles only to discover that the flight you wanted is no longer bookable.
PointsYeah searches live award availability across dozens of rewards programs, so you can see what’s available before making a purchase.
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Keep in mind that points and miles purchases are generally nonrefundable. Programs may also limit how many points or miles you can purchase, so check the terms of the specific offer before buying.
A promotion can sound impressive without being particularly unusual. Looking at previous offers gives you a better idea of how today’s bonus or discount stacks up.
Open the dropdown for any airline or hotel program below to see its recent buy points or miles offer history.
