The best airlines for 2023 holiday travel on points

With flights getting more expensive around Thanksgiving and the winter holidays, you may be inclined to use accumulated points and miles to try to save some money. About 30% of holiday travelers plan to use points and miles to pay for travel expenses in 2023, according to a conducted by The Harris Poll of more than 2,000 adults. That might have been a dependable money-saving strategy five or 10 years ago, back when airlines published award charts that clearly showed how many points or miles you’d need to book a flight.

But most U. S. airlines have switched to dynamic award pricing, meaning the cost in points can fluctuate as much as cash prices do.

So in many cases, holiday flights on points are no longer the deal they once were — and can be high enough to make your jaw drop. In fact, you might get a lower cent-per-point value than usual if you’re not careful. NerdWallet does an .

Conducted in August, the analysis looks at redeeming miles for flights 15 days in advance, for flights 180 days in advance, and for holiday flights. (For the latter, NerdWallet looked at flights departing Dec. 22, one of the , and returning Dec.

29. ) The results show that airline miles are generally worth less around the last week of December. If you’re flying domestically, there are two ways to think about getting maximum value for miles.

If you’re flying internationally, you have other options to maximize your miles. Among U. S.

airlines, American and Southwest have the highest-valued miles when redeemed for holiday flights. Their miles are worth about 1. 5 cents per dollar during the holidays.

For American, this is slightly lower than its usual valuation at 1. 7 cents per dollar. For Southwest, the 1.

5 cents per point is the same as nonholiday travel redemptions. To determine the redemption value of miles, divide the cash price of the flight by the number of miles required to get it. Frontier Airlines is the only airline that fared better in the analysis than usual.

Its holiday valuation of 1. 3 cents per point is slightly higher than its normal baseline of 1. 1 cent.

However, this cost considers only the base fare — added fees for seat selection or baggage might decrease your value per point. The highest-valued miles during the holidays don’t come from U. S.

-based airlines. If you’re planning on vacationing during the holidays and aren’t tied to a specific location, you could blow the 1. 5-cents-per-point mark out of the water if you were to fly, say, ANA (All Nippon Airways) or Singapore Airlines to Asia.

Not only do both airlines consistently rank as the world’s best in Skytrax’s rankings, but they also still have award charts, so their award flight prices generally don’t go up as much as the dynamic prices in other programs. ANA’s miles are worth 2. 8 cents per mile during the holidays, the same as usual.

Singapore’s miles are worth 2. 1 cents per mile during the holidays, up from 1. 5 cents usually.

If you haven’t flown these airlines recently (or ever), you might still be able to book with miles if you have a travel credit card that transfers to either of these airlines’ loyalty programs. ANA is a transfer partner of American Express Membership Rewards, and Singapore Airlines is a . If the price in miles makes your head spin, remember that the principles for saving are the same for flights booked in cash and points.

To reduce the cost of holiday flights, you can try: You may be feeling the squeeze on holiday travel because it seems too expensive right now. , even though data from the consumer price index actually indicates that they are lower than they were before the pandemic (September 2023 airfares were about 6. 5% lower than airfares in September 2019.

) Redeeming miles can be a good way to lower your travel costs, but make sure you’re not spending more miles than it’s worth. .