AwardHacker is a popular online tool that helps travelers find out how many miles they need for award flights. It is a great starting point for finding award flights, but it doesn’t show you real-time availability.

That’s where AwardFares comes in. As a great alternative to AwardHacker, AwardFares provides real-time availability for award flights across multiple frequent flyer programs, so you can see exactly which flights are available and book them immediately.

In this post, we’ll explore how AwardFares offers a compelling alternative and complement to AwardHacker by providing the crucial missing piece of the puzzle: knowing whether those award seats are actually bookable. AwardFares gives you a complete picture of your award flight options, helping you maximize your miles and fly for less. Let’s get started!

Note: As the name of both tools are quite similar, we will denote AwardFares in bold, to make it more clear.

In This Post

What is AwardHacker?

AwardHacker is a free online tool that helps users determine how many miles are required to fly from Point A to Point B with various frequent flyer programs. Instead of manually checking each airline’s redemption chart, users can quickly get an overview of which programs offer the best value for a particular route.

Key Features of AwardHacker

  • Comprehensive database of major frequent flyer programs.
  • Ability to filter results based on one-way, round trip, or multi-city trips.
  • Shows results for economy, premium economy, business, and first-class.
  • Direct links to the relevant frequent flyer program for booking.
AwardHacker and Award Fares.

Image: AwardHacker Homepage.

What is AwardFares?

While AwardHacker tells you the theoretical cost of award flights, AwardFares goes a step further by showing actual availability. You can try it for free, and also upgrade to more premium tiers that are packed with features such as advanced filtering capabilities, alerts, seat maps, journey planner, and more. AwardFares is key to scoring long-haul business and first class award seats, which are extremely competitive.

Key Features of AwardFares

  • Real-time award seat availability for major airlines.
  • Blazing fast performance.
  • Ability to set up alerts for specific routes and classes, notifying users when seats become available.
  • Displays availability for a range of dates, ideal for flexible travelers.
  • User-friendly interface with beautiful and clear visualizations of available seats.
  • Great experience on mobile.

Why AwardFares Is The Perfect Alternative To AwardHacker

At first glance, it may seem redundant to use both AwardHacker and AwardFares, but each platform serves a unique purpose in the award booking process.

While there’s no shortage of tools and blogs dedicated to the art of maximizing miles and points, AwardHacker and AwardFares stand out as a dynamic duo that complements each other perfectly. Together, they provide both the theoretical and practical insights travelers need to turn their hard-earned miles into memorable journeys.

1. Comprehensive Mileage Overview Meets Real-time Availability

AwardHacker provides a broad overview of how many miles are needed across various frequent flyer programs for specific routes. It illuminates which program may offer the best bang for your buck.

How AwardFares Helps: While AwardHacker gives a theoretical perspective, AwardFares shows real-time seat availability. Together, they ensure you don’t just know the cost in miles, but also the probability of securing a seat.

AwardHacker Search Results.

Image: AwardHacker Search Results

2. Route Planning and Strategy Formulation

If you’re flexible with your destinations or are planning multi-city trips, AwardHacker can guide your route strategy by showcasing which programs are more favorable for each segment.

The AwardFares Advantage: Once you have an idea of potential routes and programs, you can hop onto AwardFares to see if award seats for these routes are available. You can also leverage AwardFares’ Journey Planner, which is a powerful tool to break down a trip and work out award flights to difficult destinations.

Plan flights and itineraries exploring routes and award flights with AwardFares and AwardHacker.

Image: AwardFares Journey Planner and Map View.

Read more about AwardFares’ Journey Planner feature here.

3. Points Transfer Decisions

For those with credit card points, AwardHacker’s overview allows users to see which frequent flyer programs might be the most beneficial to transfer their points to.

How AwardFares Helps: Before making a transfer, you can double-check on AwardFares if the seats are available, ensuring you don’t lock your points in a program without seat availability.

Use AwardHacker and AwardFares to make point transfer decisions from credit cards to frequent flyer programs.

Image: AwardHacker Filter Searches By Loyalty Programs.

4. Flexibility with Class Preferences

AwardHacker displays the mileage requirements for economy, premium economy, business, and first-class. This feature can be useful for travelers who are flexible and want to decide which class offers the best value.

How AwardFares Helps: Once you’ve determined which class might be the best value for your miles, AwardFares can be used to check the availability of seats in that class for your chosen route. With the new features, you can also compare award prices and search for mixed cabin itineraries.

See mixed cabin award flights with AwardFares.

Image: AwardFares Pricing and Mixed Cabin Awards.

5. Alerts and Proactivity

While AwardHacker doesn’t offer alerts, its comprehensive data can guide frequent flyers on which routes or programs to monitor, especially if they’re aiming for a specific redemption in the future.

How AwardFares Helps: With this preemptive knowledge from AwardHacker, you can set up precise alerts on AwardFares, ensuring you are notified as soon as seats become available on your desired routes and classes.

Set up an alert in AwardFares for a route you saw using AwardHacker.

Image: Easily set up alerts in AwardFares.

Read more about AwardFares’ Alerts feature here.

In a Nutshell: AwardHacker vs. AwardFares

Feature AwardFares AwardHacker
Ease of Use Intuitive and user-friendly interface with advanced filtering options. Basic interface with fewer filters.
Real-Time Search Yes, searches are live and up-to-date with real-time availability data. No, relies on cached data, less accurate.
Advanced Filtering Flexible filters (e.g., airline alliances, class, number of stops). Limited filtering options.
Supported Airlines & Alliances Covers major airlines, alliances (Star Alliance, Oneworld, SkyTeam), and independents. Limited airlines and alliances supported.
Multiple Search Options Supports specific routing, multi-city, and open-jaw search. Basic one-way and round-trip searches only.
Detailed Seat Maps Provides seat maps for available flights (helps users gauge seat availability). No seat map support.
Calendar View 30-day availability calendar to spot trends easily. No calendar view available.
Price Comparison Shows point cost across different programs to compare redemptions. Displays point requirements, but lacks customization.
Subscription Tiers Multiple subscription plans, including free and premium options for varying needs. Free, but lacks premium features.
Customer Support Dedicated support and resources available for premium users. Limited support, mainly self-help.

Try AwardFares Today

With our Gold and Diamond tiers, you can access premium features such as unlimited daily searches, alerts, seat maps, flight schedules, and more!

You can try AwardFares for free. We are rolling out new features and improvements regularly, so sign up for our monthly newsletter to stay on top of the latest news, announcements, and pro-tips.

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