72. Horses, Zebras, and Unicorns: Business Class Award Flight Edition (Part 2)

Welcome to Point Me to First Class, the only show for employed professionals, entrepreneurs, and business owners who are looking to optimize their higher-than-average expenses to travel the world. I'm your host, Devon Gimbel, and I believe that your expenses are your greatest untapped asset if you know how to leverage them. Ready to dive into the world of credit card points and miles so you can travel more, travel better, and travel often? Let's get started.

Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the podcast and to the second part of the horses, zebras, and unicorns business class award flight series. This two-part podcast series is your roadmap to understanding which business class award flights are the easiest to book, especially when you want to book multiple award tickets on the same flight, to which ones are more challenging to downright nearly impossible.

I've been wanting to create this series for a while for two main reasons. First, I think there's a belief or misconception that it is just not possible to book multiple business class award tickets on a single flight. When I say multiple, I mean specifically four or more business class award tickets.

While it's certainly easier to find one or two business class awards on basically any flight, I really want to dispel the notion that it's just outright impossible to ever find four or more business class award tickets because that hasn't been my experience. As you heard on last week's episode, there are actually several airlines that consistently offer multiple business class award tickets on a wide range of routes for reasonable points prices.

Which brings me to the second reason I wanted to create this podcast series, which is that when you know which airline frequent flyer programs most consistently offer the best business class award availability, and likewise, which frequent flyer programs or airline routes or geographic destinations traditionally have much less award availability, you have a far better chance at creating a strategy that's going to help you be successful in your award flight search. 

I think one thing that is missing in the larger conversation about using points to book business class flights is that there can be a huge discrepancy between availability of awards based on where you want to travel or how flexible your travel parameters are. 

On the one hand, I think it's really fun to see people talk about booking various incredible premium cabin awards to an exotic destination for practically no points. But the reality is that while some award flights are really aspirational, they're often not always entirely practical or something that most of us can expect to replicate. 

The last thing that I want you to think is that unless you're a solo traveler who can position anywhere in the country, or world for that matter, in order to take advantage of a great award deal, and your schedule is so flexible that you can book flights either five days in advance of traveling, or grab the single first class award available on a specific airline on, I don't know, Tuesday, November 12th, or you happen to be scouring the internet to book an elusive award before anyone else knows it exists, that you're just not going to have any luck ever booking business class flights using points.

Because the vast majority of the time, I don't book award travel like a travel influencer. I travel with a family of four, usually around very traditional school breaks like spring break and winter break when demand for travel is really high. While I have a lot of time and location flexibility, my husband doesn't, which means that we tend to plan our travel in advance around fairly constrained travel dates.

We also travel to and from the U.S. on fairly straightforward itineraries, meaning that we're not benefiting from insane award deals that might only exist if you're able to route somewhat randomly or circuitously around the world. I know that a lot of you listening have similar constraints around booking your own travel. So this series is for you.

Because while I do think that it's thrilling to book the single first class ANA award flight featuring the new first class suite product for possibly the only single day it's available in the next 11 months from Tokyo to New York, and I would gladly rearrange my entire life around to accommodate that, most of you will not want or be able to do the same thing. That's not what this series is about. 

This series is about helping you quickly and easily calibrate your award travel expectations to trends in business class award availability. I already told you that I don't want you to think it's impossible to book multiple business class flights for your next trip, but I also don't want you to have to guess about which routes, destinations or airlines have the highest and the lowest probability of having business class awards available. 

Likewise, while it's really important that you know that lots of business class award flight horses do exist, some of your wish list experiences might include award flights that fall into the zebra or unicorn categories. 

Not only do I want you to have a reasonable expectation of your likelihood of finding business class award flights based on what general category that flight or destination falls into well in advance of your actually booking your travel, I also want you to be equipped with strategies that can improve your chances of finding zebra and even unicorn award flights. Because booking those award flights pose different challenges than booking horse award flights and likely will require a different game plan. 

So today we are going to talk about what business class award flights are zebras, what business class award flights are unicorns, the specific challenges you face if you're trying to book either of these, and what your award booking game plans should include if you don't want to come away from your award searches empty handed or entirely discouraged. 

But before we do that, this seems like a good time to mention that if you have not already listened to last week's episode, podcast episode number 70, you might want to hit pause on this episode and come back once you've had a chance to hear the first part of this two part series. 

For anyone who has listened to last week's episode, the first part of the horses, zebras, and unicorns podcast series covered six airline frequent flyer programs that in my experience, reliably offer multiple business class award seats and are a great place to start focusing an award search. While those airlines and specific award flights that they offer obviously have some differences, all the award flights in the horse category share these features. 

They all offer a wide range of flights where it's relatively common to find at least two business class award seats, if not four or sometimes even more, on a wide range of routes and travel dates. Horses are horses because they're common. Booking one of these award flights should not feel like finding a needle in a haystack. 

Beyond having basic award searching skills and some travel flexibility, the award flights in the horse category don't require any special strategizing in order to find them. For these reasons, award flights in the horse category are great ones to book for beginners to award travel because the chances of successfully finding business class awards, even for multiple people, are relatively good. 

When we talk about business class award flights that fall into the zebra category, by definition, you should not expect them to be as frequent or common as the awards in the horse category. Zebra business class award flights have fundamentally lower availability than horse business class award flights, which makes them less predictably easy to find and book.

But when I say that they have lower availability, what I mean is that these are destinations or routes where it's by no means impossible to find business class award flights, but they often don't have as wide a range of options as award flights in the horse category. 

Just take traveling from North America to Europe, for example. Using the airline hotel loyalty programs I mentioned on last week's episode, I can think of at least 100 different potential options for finding a reasonably priced business class award flight, taking into consideration all of the different airlines that fly between North America and Europe, the vast number of potential departure and arrival airports, and the frequency of flights between the two regions.

By contrast, business class award flights in the zebra category tend to be more challenging to find and book because there are fewer airlines that operate flights on these routes or to these destinations. These flights might operate at a significantly lower frequency than flights to other parts of the world, or the total inventory of premium cabin award tickets is comparatively much lower than, say, business class flights to all of Europe. 

So now that you understand some of the features that land a business class award in the zebra category, let's talk about two specific examples of zebra award flights. The first business class award flight that I think qualifies as a zebra are flights with lie-flat business or first class seats from the U.S. to South America. 

The majority of flights that you can book from the States to South American hotspots like Santiago, Buenos Aires, or Sao Paulo are operated by domestic airlines or international airlines that don't have true lie-flat seats in business or their first class. 

Instead, many of these flights are operated by aircraft that have a three cabin arrangement typical of most U.S. domestic flights where there's economy, premium economy, and first class. But the first class cabin consists of like five rows of recliner seats that are arranged in a two-by-two configuration.  

While these are certainly a bit more spacious and comfortable than economy seats, domestic first class is usually nothing special to write home about or necessarily to look forward to on a flight that can be eight or 10 hours long as some flights to South America can be. If you have your heart set on using points to fly one of these long haul flights to South America in a true lie-flat seat, your options are going to be much more limited than if you're trying to fly across the Atlantic Ocean to Europe.

Another factor that lands lie-flat business or first class award flights to South America in the zebra category is that many of the U.S. domestic airlines like United or American that do operate a few aircraft with true lie-flat business class seats on their flights tend to keep award availability very, very low at the saver level or the award level where points prices are actually reasonable for these flights. 

Just for fun, because I'm strange and these are the type of things that I do for fun, I ran a search before recording this podcast to see how many United flights with true lie-flat business class or first class seats are available from the U.S. to major South American airports over the next year. 

All told, I found 56 flights that had at least three or four lie-flat business class award seats at reasonable points prices for the next year. 56. That's all flights combined out of the major U.S. departing airports including Los Angeles, San Francisco, Houston, Chicago, and New York to major South American airports including Lima, Santiago, Buenos Aires, and Sao Paulo over the next 365 days. 

That is not a lot, especially when you take into consideration that the majority of those flights are ones that are departing in the next month or two, which is great if you're someone who wants to or can book international travel just a few weeks out, but if you prefer to plan farther ahead, it's incredibly slim pickings for lie-flat business or first class award availability.

But all is not lost here because while booking zebra award flights do present some challenges, you can still find options if you know where to look. In the case of lie-flat seats from the U.S. to South America, the best place to look isn't necessarily one of the domestic airlines, though if that's an option, absolutely go for it. 

Instead, the airline that tends to have the best lie-flat seat award availability on aircraft from North America to especially some of the Southern South American hubs is LATAM, a Chilean multinational airline based in Santiago with secondary hubs in Lima, Bogota, and Sao Paulo.

From those major airports in South America, you can enjoy lie-flat seats flying to several North American airports including Los Angeles, Atlanta, JFK, Boston, Miami, and Mexico City. Not only does LATAM offer good business class award availability to South America, especially compared to the U.S. domestic airlines, but their award pricing is also amazing to reasonable depending on the points currencies that you have access to. 

Now if you happen to have Alaska Airlines miles or Bilt points that can now transfer to Alaska, you can book a one-way business class award flight on LATAM to southern South America for as little as 35,000 to 50,000 points per person, again one way, which is an absolute steal considering that some of these flights can be up to 9 or 10 hours long in a true lie-flat business class seat.

For now, you can also book LATAM award flights through other Oneworld airlines like Qantas or British Airways, though those programs will charge more points than Alaska Airlines does. Officially, LATAM left the Oneworld Alliance a few years ago in 2020. So it's very convenient that we're still able to book their award flights through Oneworld programs like Alaska, Qantas, and British Airways. 

There's no guarantee that this option will remain available in the future. So if a long-haul flight to South America in a lie-flat seat is on your travel wish list, this is one award that you might want to consider booking sooner rather than later. 

Before we move on to the second example of a business class award flight that falls in the zebra category, I just want to give a shout out to the fantastic blogging and podcasting team over at Frequent Miler. They have produced some of the best, most comprehensive points travel coverage, specifically of LATAM and this sweet spot for traveling to South America using points. So I want to acknowledge them for their incredible work and point you in their direction if you want to read more about LATAM award flights.

So moving on to the second award example of a business class award flight that I consider to be a zebra, and that's business class awards to Japan. Over the last few years, Japan has skyrocketed in popularity and frequently tops the list of places that folks most want to travel. At the same time, business class award availability seems to be trending down, especially if you're looking to book more than two business class award tickets on a given flight.

The two Tokyo-based airlines, JAL and ANA, offer phenomenal business class products from a wide range of U.S. airports to Haneda and Narita airports in Japan. But good luck easily finding multiple business class award flights on either airline. ANA rarely releases more than two business class award tickets on their flights, and these not infrequently get snapped up almost as soon as they're released.

Up until sometime around last year, JAL seemed to be pretty reliable in releasing solid business class award availability on their flights, sometimes even up to five business class award seats on a given flight, that you could book through partner airlines like American, Cathay Pacific, or British Airways. 

But more recently, their award availability appears to be lower than in the past. If you're someone who can plan your travel pretty far in advance, you might have luck snagging multiple business class award tickets on JAL booking through British Airways right around when their award booking calendar opens. But the relative scarcity of these flights makes it far from guaranteed that you're going to be able to secure multiple business class award tickets on that airline. 

So what can you do if a zebra business class award happens to top your travel wish list, and you want to maximize your chances of award success? Well here are my top three tips for how to approach booking multiple business class award seats on a flight in the zebra category. 

First, instead of having your heart set on flying on one particular airline or one particular route to your desired destination, follow the opportunities for airline programs that tend to offer better business class award availability. In the case of flying lie-flat seats to South America, you heard that LATAM Airlines offers much better award availability than the domestic US airlines.  

For those of you wanting to plan a trip to Japan using points, there's an award opportunity for you too, and it comes from Singapore Airlines. On last week's podcast episode, I raved about Singapore Airlines as one of the airlines that shows up in the horse category for many business class award flights.

one lesser known award sweet spot with fantastic business class availability is Singapore's flight from LAX to Tokyo. Unlike most of Singapore Airlines flights, the LAX to Tokyo flight does not route through Singapore first. It's a direct flight from Los Angeles to Narita Airport on board Singapore Airlines. 

Not only do you get to spend about 11 and a half hours on one of the best business class products available, but you can usually find certain dates that have multiple business class award tickets available on the same flight for this route. Like three to four, even sometimes up to six business class tickets for a points price of anywhere between about 103,000 points and 123,000 points per person one way. 

If you do want to take advantage of flying LATAM to South America or booking Singapore Airlines from LAX to Tokyo in order to secure multiple business class award flights, know that that might require you first to position or fly separately to one of the airports that LATAM services or to LAX in the case of the Singapore Airlines flight.

This brings me to my second tip for how to approach booking multiple business class award seats on a flight in the zebra category. That is expand your travel flexibility as much as possible. One of the hallmarks of zebra business class flights is their limited availability relative to award flights in the horse category. So in order to increase your chances of finding a zebra business class award flight, you may have to also increase your willingness to be flexible with your travel plans. 

This can look like being flexible with your travel dates. If it means that you're going to be able to book multiple business class award flights to one of these destinations. It can mean being willing to position or first fly from your home airport to another airport that has better business class award availability. It can look like prioritizing getting close enough to your final destination on a business class flight and then separately traveling to that final destination. 

In the case of flying to South America, positioning on the back end can look like flying into Santiago, Chile and then taking a separate flight to Bolivia if that's your ultimate destination rather than trying to find a flight that flies directly into Bolivia. In the case of wanting to travel to Japan, positioning on the back end can look like flying to Singapore or Hong Kong or Taipei if you happen to find a good business class award flight option to those hubs and then connecting separately to Japan once you're already in the region.

Finally, the third tip for how to strategize booking multiple business class award flights on a zebra award is simply to allocate more points for your award flight budget if it means that you'll be able to book more than one or two award flights on the same aircraft. 

When it comes to booking zebra business class awards, you may get really fortunate and find your ideal flight for your ideal travel dates for as many people as you want to book at a low points price, but expect that scenario to be the exception rather than the rule. The key to booking more than two business class award tickets on a zebra award flight is to know where you're willing to be flexible based on your travel priorities.

Now these two examples are not intended to be exhaustive of all award flights that might fall into the zebra category. Rather, they're meant to highlight two destinations that present more challenges to booking multiple business class award tickets than the examples in the horse category. To give you some framework for understanding those challenges that booking these flights present as well as how to approach these award searches to increase your chances of booking success. 

Because while finding lie-flat business class seats to South America or multiple business class tickets to Japan can be tough, they're nowhere near the hardest to find award flights. For that honor, we have to look to the award flights that fall into the unicorn category. 

But before I tell you the three flights that I consider to be unicorns when it comes to booking multiple business class awards, let's talk about the features these flights share in common that lands them in the unicorn category to begin with. 

First and foremost, unicorn flights are unicorn flights because they are rare. When I say rare, I mean really rare. So rare that you shouldn't expect that you are actually going to find them on purpose unless you have extreme flexibility in your travel planning, especially if you're trying to book more than one business class award ticket. 

Not only are unicorn award flights by definition ones with incredibly limited award availability, but they also tend to involve destinations that are served by relatively few airlines or at a much lower flight frequency than other destinations. They also tend to be destinations that have very high demand for travel, even for cash tickets. They're flights where the cash rates, especially premium cabin tickets, can typically be very high. 

By no means am I telling you this to be discouraging if you happen to be lusting after a unicorn award flight. Rather, I want you to be aware of what to expect if you do want to use points for one of these award flights. We're going to talk about how to approach strategizing looking for or booking a unicorn award flight. But first, let's look at three specific examples of flights that fall into this category.

Up first, the only domestic flight to land on this podcast series, and that's lie flat seats to Hawaii. This is somewhat similar to trying to book lie flat seats from the states to South America, only harder. That's because not only is demand for flights to Hawaii extraordinarily high, even for cash tickets, but like many flights to South America, the vast majority of aircraft that fly to Hawaii use a domestic first class product of large recliner seats rather than having true lie flat business class seats. This is true even for flights originating on the East Coast where you're looking at about an 11 hour flight by the time that you touch down in the Aloha State. 

Now, there are a few flights to Hawaii that are operated by aircraft that do have true lie flat seats, like some United flights from Washington, D.C., Newark or Chicago to Honolulu or an American Airlines flight from Phoenix to Honolulu. But these are very few and far between compared to the total number of flights operating between the mainland and Hawaii.

Additionally, good luck booking points flights in first class on aircraft with true lie flat seats unless you're willing to pay an exorbitant points price, if they're even available at all. Delta, for example, charges around 180,000 to 200,000 points for one way first class flights on their JFK to Honolulu route for a single person that offers their lie flat Delta One product. 

So what are your options if you do want to fly in a lie flat seat to Hawaii? I have a few ideas, but before we get to that, let's look at the other two flights that land in the unicorn category. 

Coming in next as the second unicorn is finding multiple business class award tickets on direct flights from the U.S. to major airport hubs in East or South Africa, including Nairobi, Johannesburg, and Cape Town airports. These destinations in particular are extremely popular as their common jumping off points for safaris in these regions.

I can definitely understand the appeal of flying directly from the U.S. to East or South Africa, given that even nonstop flights clock in at around 15 hours, but it is exceedingly rare to find reasonable points priced flights, especially for several people on the very, very few direct flights that United and Delta operate to these airports. When I say that there are very few nonstop flights offered between the states and East and South Africa, I mean there are six. Even these six flights don't all operate daily. 

Assuming that business class award seats are even offered on these flights, you can expect to pay a significant price for them. Once again, Delta shocks no one by charging the ridiculous points price of 495,000 points for a one way first class flight from Atlanta to Cape Town per person. 

But I suppose the good news is that there's at least availability for four award tickets at that price, which is likely to be appealing to approximately nobody. But even direct business or first class award flights to East or South Africa aren't the unicorniest of all unicorn flights. 

No, that award goes to direct flights between the mainland U.S. and Australia and New Zealand. I'm not even sure what else to say about snagging multiple business class award tickets to Australia or New Zealand other than to say it is astoundingly difficult. But I guess that's one of the main takeaways for you all from this episode. 

Of course, I completely understand why flying business class to Australia or New Zealand might be your award travel dream. They're absolutely stunning countries. It takes a million hours to get there, even if you're flying from the West Coast. Cash prices to fly there are so incredibly expensive in business class that it can seem like the equivalent of having to take out a second mortgage. But I'm really not here to burst your award travel bubble, especially if you just found out that your dream trip is a unicorn. 

Instead, here's how I think it can be useful to approach booking a unicorn award flight. First, just understanding that what you're looking for is a unicorn is an important step. 

Second, adopt the mindset that when it comes to booking multiple business class award seats on a unicorn flight, the unicorn flight chooses you. You don't choose it. What I mean by that is that if your ultimate priority is flying business class direct from the States to Australia or flying business or first class to Hawaii but only on a lie flat seat, you have to release all expectation that you get to decide when you're going or how you're going to get there.

Because every once in a while, a miraculous thing happens. That is out of nowhere, often with no warning whatsoever, a beautiful little batch of award space can get released for a unicorn flight. When that happens, you need to move quickly, and you cannot be picky. You need to book whatever you can as quickly as you can and work your schedule around that flight availability. 

Last year in September, for example, we saw United Airlines release a batch of business class award flights to Australia and New Zealand for travel dates in November and December. There were multiple dates that had several business class award seats available for about a hundred thousand points per person one way, which is actually a really great award price for business class flights of that distance. But those flights did not stick around for long. So if you didn't act quick and book them, they were gone. 

Booking unicorn award flights is not the time or place to be picky. You might not get your first choice of travel dates, departure or arrival airports, or even specific airline. But if you're willing to be incredibly flexible and jump on a unicorn when it unexpectedly appears, you can grab the points deal of a lifetime. 

But let's say that you are just not in the position to be able to act on a unicorn flight release. What then? I know that many of you have fairly inflexible schedules that just might not allow for you to decide to take off for two weeks with only a few months’ notice just because Qantas or American Airlines or United decided to be generous with award space. 

Well, there are other ways to strategize how to travel plan booking multiple business class award tickets for one of the destinations in the unicorn category, but please recognize that all of these approaches will likely involve some element of compromise on your part. Here are my top three recommendations if booking a unicorn award flight, especially for multiple people, is on your travel wish list. 

First, take advantage of award sweet spots if you can. In the case of flying lie flat seats to Hawaii, you might not get your pick of booking one of those direct United or American Airlines or Delta flights to Honolulu. But Hawaiian Airlines can be a great alternative, especially on the routes that are operated by the A330 aircraft that offers lie flat seats in first class. 

While award seats on these flights are not always available, there is a sweet spot on the Austin to Maui route where you can sometimes find lie flat first class award seats available for just 40,000 points per person one way. 

Going the opposite direction, I already mentioned that it's unlikely that you're going to score a great points deal booking multiple business class awards on nonstop flights between the US and East or South Africa. But a semi-sweet spot exists on Ethiopian Airlines. Ethiopian Airlines offers direct flights between its hub in Addis Ababa to multiple airports in North America, including Atlanta, Chicago, Newark, New York, Toronto, and Washington DC, which can be booked for around 90,000 points per person one way.

It can be much easier to find business class award availability for one or two people on a lot of Ethiopian flights. But this is a scenario where it might make sense to book a larger party on sequential or different flights if it enables you to get a group of people to a desired destination for a reasonable points price. From Addis Ababa, you can easily connect regionally to Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa, or elsewhere.

My second recommendation for travel planning if a unicorn flight is on your travel wish list is be willing to consider unique, creative, or connecting itineraries if they allow you to get where you most want to go and at an award price that you'd actually consider paying. In the case of flying to East or South Africa, there are significantly more options available to you on international airlines that may only require one stop or layover to get to your final destination. 

Once again, the amazing Air France and KLM Flying Blue program offers some great options. Transiting through their hubs in Paris or Amsterdam, you can fly from one of many North American airports to hubs in Kenya, Tanzania, or South Africa for as little as about 105,000 points per person one way in business class with many, many more potential travel dates showing award availability than if you're limited to only flying a domestic airline direct to these countries. 

Specifically, I found over 500 flights over the next year that have business class award availability for four people from Paris or Amsterdam to major airports in East and South Africa. 

In the case of other unicorn award flight destinations, Australia and New Zealand, taking a longer route through a connecting itinerary may at least open up business class award options where otherwise there might be none. Here is another example of where Singapore Airlines shines. From its hub in Singapore, the airline flies to 10 cities in Australia and New Zealand, including Sydney, Melbourne, and Auckland. You can oftentimes find some business class award availability for multiple people on these routes.

Starting from North America, you can fly Singapore Airlines through Singapore to Australia for around 140,000 points per person one way in business class. Now, it's not the absolute fastest way to get to Australia. I'm not going to claim that 140,000 points one way per person is a small amount to pay for a business class award flight in general. But when it comes to unicorn flight destinations, we are not looking for perfect. 

My third and final recommendation for travel planning, if a unicorn award flight is on your travel wish list, is to do something that I ordinarily tell folks to avoid. That is consider booking your flight using points through your credit card travel portal. Now, there are actually a lot of reasons why I usually avoid and detest using my points to book flights directly through a credit card associated travel portal. But I'm not going to dive into detail on those on this episode. 

But from a value perspective, using your points through your credit card account is often discouraged because you're going to get at most about one to one and a half cents per point in value from your points, which is arguably not amazing. But the reason that I am bringing up using your points through your credit card travel portal here is because what you sacrifice in value, you gain an increased flight options, and that ultimately could be worth it. 

Remember that award availability, especially saver or low priced award availability is almost always minimal compared to the total number of premium cabin seats that are actually available to book on any given flight. When you use your points through your credit card travel portal to book flights, you have access to much greater seat availability since you're not limited to just booking the premium cabin seats that have been tagged as award seats by the airline.

For someone who is points rich but does not have the schedule flexibility to grab a unicorn flight when it unexpectedly appears, using your points to book premium cabin flights directly through your credit card travel portal can absolutely help defray your out of pocket cash cost and give you access to not only higher numbers of business class tickets on any given flight but also far more options of potential flight routes or travel dates to pick from. 

Ultimately, when it comes to booking multiple business class seats specifically on a unicorn flight, you have to decide whether you want to prioritize getting a points deal at the expense of your being able to choose when and how you get to your destination or sacrifice some of the potential value of your points in order to have more say in the actual flights or travel dates you choose. 

So there you have it, everybody. That is our series on horses, zebras, and unicorns when it comes to booking multiple business class award flights. Before we wrap up today, I just want to offer a few last thoughts and some takeaways from this two-part series. 

First, I think it's probably apparent, but this list of award flights and destinations is not entirely exhaustive, nor am I suggesting that it represents some absolute objective truth. The way that I categorize award flights is of course subjective based on my experience booking multiple business class award flights for myself and my clients and from observing award trends and how they've changed over time. 

But there are tons of additional airlines, routes, and destinations that I just didn't have time to include in this series. So I suggest that you use the information in these two episodes as a starting point for how you may want to categorize award flights or approach award flight travel planning and booking for yourself.

Additionally, I intentionally focused on airline routes and destinations in this series when it comes to booking multiple business class award flights. If your travel goals include booking economy award flights or premium cabin award flights for just one or even two people, please know that you will likely have infinitely more options than if your goal is to book multiple premium cabin awards. So use the information in these two episodes as context for what to expect specifically if you're trying to secure multiple premium cabin award tickets.

I hope that you found this discussion useful if not entertaining and that it helps you to formulate a framework for what to expect and how to travel plan booking multiple business class award flights based on whether you're looking for a horse, a zebra, or a unicorn. Remember that when it comes to booking zebra and especially unicorn award flights, you most likely won't get everything you want in terms of ideal travel dates, ideal itinerary, and amazing points price. But the more that you can be flexible, the higher chances that you'll have of putting your points to great use. 

For those of you who are just starting out, you might want to try booking a horse award before you shoot for a unicorn. I wish you all enormous success and fun putting your points to great use. In the meantime, have a wonderful week, and I'll see you again same time, same place next week. 

Thank you for joining me for this week's episode of Point Me to First Class. If you want more tips on turning your expenses into travel, visit pointmetofirstclass.com to learn more. See you next week.