Partner Award Space: What You Need To Know

Partner award space can be a difficult concept to wrap your head around. Airlines have partnerships within an airline alliance, and many airlines partner with non-alliance members to offer more destinations to their frequent fliers. 

To make matters more confusing, not all airline partners allow frequent fliers to redeem their miles to fly on their planes. You may be able to book a cash ticket with Airline X through Airline Y’s website, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you can redeem Airline Y’s miles to fly on Airline X. 

In this article, we’ll give you a deep understanding of what partner award space is and how you can use it to your advantage.

What is Partner Award Space?

Partner award space is a broad term in the points and miles community that describes any situation in which you can use loyalty miles from one airline to book a seat on an entirely different airline. 

Sometimes, those airlines are in the same alliance, but many airlines, like Air Canada Aeroplan, have multiple partnerships outside their home alliance. Partner award space is different than codeshare flights, which are typical for airlines to offer. Usually, partner award space is minimal within a frequent flyer program, but they tend to be some of the best redemptions.

Partner Award Space & Airline Alliances

The most basic way to understand partner award space is by diving deeper into each of the big three airline alliances: Star Alliance, oneworld, and SkyTeam. Usually, airlines that are part of a big alliance must release at least a few seats for redemption to their partners’ loyalty programs.

Years ago, it was guaranteed that if one alliance partner had access to an award seat, all of the other loyalty programs in that alliance would also have access. Sometimes, it still works that way, but it’s becoming more frequent that each member of an alliance will have access to different “levels” of award space. 

The varying award space happens for various​​ reasons, but most airlines have started charging their partners for different “bundles” of award seats. A recent example is Singapore Airlines Business Class from New York City (both JFK and EWR) to Singapore (SIN), which offered four seats to Aeroplan members but only two business class seats to Singapore KrisFlyer members.

While that opportunity has passed, more of these opportunities will likely present themselves, and you need to take advantage of them while they exist.

Partner Award Space Outside of Alliances

As mentioned, airlines can also have partnerships outside of alliances that allow reciprocal earning and redemption of miles. The best example for Canadians would be Etihad Airways, which simultaneously has relationships with Air Canada Aeroplan and Air France KLM Flying Blue. 

Etihad is not part of any airline alliance, so they have partnered with many airlines to sell extra seats on their planes, whether through cash or points bookings. Unfortunately for Aeroplan, they famously allowed Etihad First Class awards to be booked when they shouldn’t have, and they still have not recovered their relationship with Etihad.

While booking Economy class awards on Etihad through Aeroplan is still possible, finding Business Class or First Class availability is nearly impossible. On the contrary, Flying Blue and Etihad have a great relationship. You can find many Etihad Business Class awards through the Flying Blue website.

It’s worth noting that long-haul Etihad award space to and from North America seemed to be in a funk when I wrote this article (February 2025), but I imagine it will be back at some point.

How to Get Better at Finding Partner Award Space

Using the right websites can save time when tracking down a partner award flight. Within each alliance, at least one partner tends to open a calendar view, which makes searching for cheap awards much faster.

US airlines have much to improve upon regarding passenger experience, but their IT is some of the best out there. Using the United Airlines website, it’s quite easy to see a month of available flights on one route at a time, and you’re looking for flights operated by a Star Alliance carrier other than United. 

You access that calendar by selecting “Flexible dates” before you start a search.

When searching for the above route, any days that show up as 88,000 points are almost always partner award space. By clicking on that day, you’ll get the details of the itinerary. You can then cross-reference that result with Air Canada’s website, which will confirm partner award availability, and you can book it via Aeroplan for significantly fewer miles.

While that should theoretically yield results, no one knows how partner award availability works. Aeroplan has some funny search logic with married segments, so don’t be surprised if you follow this guide and don’t get results immediately. 

And there’s no guarantee that the seats will be available with that partner, even if you search in advance and “confirm” it via the website. Phantom availability can exist within an alliance, so if you plan to transfer points from a financial institution, it’s always a good idea to call the frequent flyer program first to confirm the flights before transferring points.

American Airlines is the other darling of points and miles travelers for oneworld bookings. While the American Airlines website won’t be able to see flights further than 330 days away, they can do an excellent job of looking for partner award availability on oneworld airlines. 

After you’ve started a search, you’ll click on Calendar, allowing you to quickly zoom through months at a time and filter by class of service.

Going to London with British Airways will incur some severe taxes and fees. However,​​ the best way to avoid them is to book with Cathay Pacific Asia Miles, which has significantly fewer​​ taxes and fees. This search engine will give you a much faster start at finding which days should be available to book with Asia Miles. 

It’s not perfect, but Cathay Pacific does a decent job of displaying available flights one week at a time. 1,700 HKD is about $325 CAD, significantly less than the usual $750+ in taxes and fees British Airways or American Airlines would charge.

You can also use various award search tools, but the one preferred by the Frugal Flyer team is seats.aero.

What Are Some Of The Best Partner Award Booking Opportunities?

Japan has been the hottest international tourist destination since reopening after the pandemic, and using Japan Airlines to fly to the island nation is a comfortable way to do it. Japan Airlines Business Class and Premium Economy class are readily available to be booked with British Airways Avios if you’re looking far enough ahead of time. 

If you can access US credit cards, you can also use the Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan to save on some taxes and fees.

United Airlines releases a lot of space on its flights at the last minute, sometimes only 48 hours before departure. While it’s unreasonable for most people to book on such short notice, I like booking a ticket in a lower cabin and checking for business class seats in the days before departure.

One thing we love about United Airlines Polaris business class is that the seats are the same across United’s entire fleet. Thus, you won’t end up on an international route with a sub-par seating configuration, as can happen with Qatar Airways. 

Just ensure you’re okay flying economy on your flight, as availability is not guaranteed. I witnessed this firsthand on my speed run around the world to earn 1,000,000 SAS Miles. 

While it’s a lot of miles to use, booking Lufthansa First Class via Aeroplan is one of the most luxurious uses of your miles. I loved it so much that I’ve done it twice!

The SkyTeam alliance is notably missing here, as there’s no great way to search for partner award availability on one website. For Canadians, one of the best ways to use SkyTeam miles to book partner flights is with WestJet and Delta. While it’s not as exciting as a premium cabin seat, paying only 12,500 SkyMiles per person to fly from Canada to Orlando can be an excellent deal.

Conclusion

Partner award availability is not an exact science. Still, by better understanding the partnerships that exist in commercial aviation, we can extract some extra value from our frequent flyer miles. Award search tools will help get you on the right track, but nothing replaces searching airline websites directly for seats to find a coveted saver redemption.

Hopefully, you now have better tools in your travel toolbelt to help your miles take you farther!