How to Check Star Alliance Award Flight Availability

Star Alliance Member Airlines

Before we talk about how to check award flights, we should know about the member airlines in the Star Alliance. The following airlines are part of the Star Alliance –

There are different ways to search award flights through these airlines. Some airlines’ search engine makes it a bit difficult to check available award flights but it is quite convenient to look out for award flights through others’ search engine.
Another obstacle you have to come across when booking award flights is phantom award space. Sometimes you may find a award flight for the airline and destination you want, at the date you want to travel, and at a fair number of miles. However, when you try to book the award ticket, you come across an error and are unable to book it.
This is phantom award space and most of the times it happens because the concerned award flight is not available anymore but this has not been updated in the airlines’ award flight search engine.
Let’s check out the ways through which you can check out Star Alliance members’ award flight availability and book them.

United Airlines

United Airlines is among the top search engines for Star Alliance award flights. You can search for flights even without logging into an account. You may face some issues with multi-partner connecting award flights but you can search ticket segment-by-segment to make it easier.

Here is how you can search for award flights at United’s website.

• Visit the official United Airlines website and cancel the Sign In or Join Now pop up.
• Click on Book > Flight and make sure to tick next to the Book with Miles option.

• Next, you have to enter the departure and arrival location along with the date, travellers, and your preferred class. Click on Find flights after entering this information.

• You will see the search results with available flights on your chosen date. You can also see the flights available on nearby dates.

• There is a 30-day calendar view option through which you can see available award flights for the whole month.

• You can check the details of the available flight including connection and seats information. Next to this, you will see the total miles required and taxes to be paid with money for both Economy and Business class.

Air Canada

Air Canada airlines’ search engine can also be used to search for Star Alliance member award flights and also for non-alliance partners of Air Canada. It is an easy-to-use, convenient tool which is a good alternative for other options. You can book flights with Aeroplan miles, Air Canada’s loyalty program, as well as other Star Alliance member airlines’ miles.

Here is how to search –

• Visit the official website of Air Canada and click on the Flights button. Make sure to tick the Book with Points check box.

• Enter the departure and arrival destination, date of travel, passengers, and click on Search Flights.

• You will see the available flights on the selected date with the total miles required and money to be paid for both Economy and Business class tickets for the flights.

• You will see the available flights on the selected date with the total miles required and money to be paid for both Economy and Business class tickets for the flights.

Singapore Airlines

Another popular member of Star Alliance, Singapore Airlines allows only its KrisFlyer loyalty program members to book business and first class tickets. You can use its search engine to find Star Alliance member award flights but you will need to create an account on the website to search for award spaces.

Here is how to search –

• Visit the official website of Singapore Airlines and log in to your KrisFlyer account.

• Click on Book Trip and tick the Redeem flights check box.

• Enter the departure and arrival destination, date of travel, class, passengers, and then click on Search button.

• You will see the search results for the chosen date and also for nearby dates. There is an option to look at flights operated by Singapore Airlines and Star Alliance members. You can choose Star Alliance to search award available flights.

• You can click on the flight you want to book and you will see its details, total miles required, and money to be paid.

Seats.Aero

Seats.Aero is an independent website that allows you to search for Star Alliance award flights through Avianca LifeMiles and United MileagePlus. It is easy to search award flights for multiple dates on this website without making a new search every time. You can even create a Pro account on this website for $8 per month and search for award flight availability for up to 361 days.

Here is how to search here –

• Visit the Seats.Aero website where you can see the soonest flights across all cabin classes.

• Open this link https://seats.aero/lifemiles/departing/DEL . You can add the airport code at the end of this link, for example we used Delhi’s code DEL, to search for all available award flights departing from there for the next 2 months.

• Similarly, use the link https://seats.aero/lifemiles/arriving/DEL. Add the airport code at the end of the link, for example, we used Delhi’s code DEL, and you can see all available flights for the next 2 months.

• Click on any flight and you can see its details, miles needed to book, and taxes for the economy, business, and first class.

Bottom Line

With almost 30 member airlines around the world, Star Alliance operates numerous flights and you have great options to redeem your earned airmiles. You can book award flights with any of the Star Alliance member airlines’ miles but it is not always easy to search for available award spaces.

Most of the times, it gets confusing to search for award tickets as some search engines are not user-friendly while some are inaccurate. There is also the issue of phantom award space where you may see an available award flight but are unable to book it.

In the above article, we talked about the best ways to search for Star Alliance member airlines award flights. These websites are easy to use and show accurate search results most of the time. Make sure to confirm award spaces before you transfer your miles and plan your Star Alliance flight accordingly.