How Many Airline Miles Do You Need for a Free Flight
Ian Snyder is a freelance writer who has been covering credit card rewards and travel loyalty programs for over 3 years. He has a passion for extracting the greatest value possible from airline miles and hotel points and has earned and redeemed millions of points over the past several years, primarily through the savvy use of credit cards. His credit card knowledge extends to all major bank programs and the unique set of partners available through each.
The number of award miles needed for an award flight depends on a variety of factors. A domestic, one-way economy flight between New York and Los Angeles ranges from 8,000 miles to 57,000 miles, depending on the dates and carrier. An international coach round-trip will run you around 60,000 miles, while one-way in first class to Europe starts at 70,000.
The exact number of miles needed for a free flight will primarily depend on three things:
- Origin and destination
- Cabin type
- Which airline you are flying and/or booking through
This is the case for airline miles earned with a specific airline. Many airlines offer co-branded credit cards that earn miles directly with their program. There are also credit cards that earn flexible points that you can transfer to airline miles, as well as cards that earn generic points that can offset the purchase cost of flights booked with any carrier.
How many miles are needed for a free flight by airline?
We sampled flight awards available with U.S. carriers and found that consumers need between about 8,000 and 57,000 miles to get a free one-way coach flight.
Free flights in business or first class start at around 25,000 miles and climb to well over 150,000 miles one-way. In most cases, the cost of a round-trip flight is approximately double what you see below.
| Airline | Coach/Economy | Business class | First class | Pricing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines | 10,000-30,000 | 20,000-55,000 | 50,000-115,000 | Region-based |
| Delta Air Lines | 8,000-36,500 | 56,000-112,500 | N/A | Dynamic |
| Southwest Airlines | 7,519-57,088 | 12,194-60,175 | N/A | Dynamic |
| United Airlines | 10,600-20,800 | 25,000-75,500 | N/A | Dynamic |
| JetBlue | 7,700-15,800 | 82,200-165,900 | N/A | Dynamic |
| Alaska Airlines | 12,500-30,000 | N/A | 30,000-95,000 | Region-based |
| Spirit Airlines | 6,000-20,000 | N/A | N/A | Dynamic |
| Frontier | 10,000 | N/A | N/A | Region |
Frontier pricing determined between LGA and ONT.
- Region-based pricing: Some carriers have a region-based award chart with the lowest-level award prices published. Awards are often available for a greater number of miles if these “saver” seats are sold out. American Airlines and Alaska fall into this category, although the former offers “Web Special” awards that can be cheaper than the published rate, and Alaska’s chart takes flight distance into account.
- Dynamic pricing: Other airlines, such as Southwest and Delta, use dynamic pricing where the cost of a free flight in miles depends on the cash ticket price. For the purposes of data comparison, we sampled prices for domestic flights between New York City (EWR/JFK/LGA) and Los Angeles (LAX), booked a little more than a month in advance. You can expect short-haul tickets, such as a flight between San Francisco and Los Angeles, to cost fewer miles.
How many miles do you need for a free flight to Hawaii?
Looking to soak in some sun on a Hawaii beach? Free flights to the 50th state require more miles than flights within the continental U.S., as you might expect. Based on our research, we found that one-way coach tickets to Hawaii cost between 8,000 and 66,000 miles.
We sampled flights from both the East Coast (JFK) and West Coast (LAX) to Hawaii (HNL).
| Airline | West Coast (LAX) | East Coast (JFK) |
|---|---|---|
| American Airlines | 22,500-32,500 | 22,500-63,500 |
| Delta Air Lines | 10,500-39,000 | 19,500-66,000 |
| Southwest Airlines | 7,800-16,596 | 61,346 |
| United Airlines | 24,800-35,000 | 34,300-45,000 |
| JetBlue | 34,100 | 23,400-29,300 |
| Alaska Airlines | 15,000-50,000 | 20,000-50,000 |
| Hawaiian Airlines |
Note that JetBlue does not operate flights to Hawaii. Some segments will be operated by Hawaiian Airlines.
How many miles do you need to have for a free international flight?
The general number of award miles needed for a free international ticket in coach/economy cabin from New York to London ranges from 10,000 miles to 65,000 miles.
Tickets in business and first class start at 47,500 miles but can sometimes cost you in excess of 300,000 miles. First class awards are expensive as well, ranging from 70,000 miles to 345,000 miles one-way.
International flights follow similar trends to what we observed with domestic mileage awards. That means some airlines priced based on the general region (Europe, South America, etc.) while others depended on the specific itinerary and date.
For the purposes of data collection, we examined the price of booking a flight between New York City (EWR/JFK) and London (LHR/LGW). Note that booking award travel to other parts of the world, including Asia, Africa and Australia, can be significantly higher for U.S. passengers.
| Airline | Coach/Economy | Business class | First class |
|---|---|---|---|
| American Airlines | 22,500-65,000 | 57,500-135,000 | 80,500-310,000 |
| Delta Air Lines | 35,000-40,000 | 170,000-285,000 | N/A |
| Southwest Airlines | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| United Airlines | 20,700-33,000 | 60,000-155,000 | 121,000 |
| JetBlue | 37,000-40,900 | 252,500 | N/A |
| Alaska Airlines | 22,500-35,000 | 57,500-75,000 | 70,000 |
| Air Canada | 32,700-55,000 | 60,000-322,700 | 100,000 |
| Virgin Atlantic | 10,000-20,000 | 47,500-65,000 | N/A |
| British Airways | 13,000-20,000 | 50,000-60,000 | 85,000-100,000 |
| Air France | 24,000-55,000 | 60,000-318,000 | 221,500-345,000 |
Alaska does not operate flights to Europe. Award flight prices are for tickets with their international partners.
Watch out for fuel surcharges
One oddity about booking international flights with miles is that you may incur significant charges in the form of fuel surcharges and taxes. These can range from a few dollars to several hundred dollars. While all U.S. taxes with the exception of a $5.60 departure security fee are covered by miles, with many programs, the traveler is on the hook for all international fees and taxes.
For example, even if you fully pay for a trip to London in miles, you can still be charged as much as $151 in taxes on a one-way economy flight. If you want to fly in a premium cabin, a one-way Upper Class flight with Virgin Atlantic can cost you $826 in taxes and surcharges. This begs the question, is using miles for free flights always the best choice for premium cabins?
Business/first class is a better deal when redeeming free flights
Most often, it is better to use your miles to pay for a first class or business class seat rather than coach or economy. Even though it takes more miles to get a free business class seat, you get a greater return on your points.
This holds true primarily for international flights.
For example, let’s assume a round-trip economy seat on American Airlines flying nonstop from JFK to LHR costs $622. A business class seat on a similar itinerary would cost $3,433, and you’d pay $5,797 for first class. Those same flights would cost you 60,000, 130,000 and 250,000 miles for economy, business and first class, respectively.
To get the per-mile value, you simply need to take the dollar fare, subtract out the award taxes and fees, and then divide the result by the price in miles.
Business: ($3,684 – $339) / 130,000 = $0.0257
First: ($5,797 – $338) / 250,000 = $0.0218
How many credit card miles do you need for a free flight?
The number of credit card miles you need depends on the number of award miles a flight requires.
- Co-branded: Airline co-branded credit cards award you miles for every dollar you spend, directly with their affiliated airline. Nearly every single carrier has their own credit card — United, Southwest and Delta offer some of the best airline cards. When it comes to using those miles for free flights, everything we said above will apply to these credit cards.
- Flexible points: Cards that earn you flexible points — like the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card and American Express® Gold Card — aren’t tied to a specific airline. However, they can still get you an award flight. These miles can be transferred to any of the bank’s loyalty partners, which include a variety of airline and hotel programs. Check out the list of Chase travel transfer partners. Points generally transfer at a 1:1 ratio to airline miles, but occasionally programs will run transfer bonuses, which means you need fewer bank points than the number of miles required by the airline.
- Miles: Some cards — like the Discover it® Miles — earn “miles” that aren’t really miles as we’ve described. These “miles” can be redeemed for flights through your credit card’s travel portal, or they’re redeemed retroactively to pay off travel purchases made on your credit card. That means you would use the card to pay for the airfare, taxes included and then use any miles you accumulate on your account to pay off those charges.
The benefit of the last method over co-branded credit cards, is that your flight can be completely free, as generic travel miles will also cover any international taxes or fuel surcharges. You can also fly with a wide range of different airlines, which offers more flexibility.
With general travel rewards cards, 1 mile usually equals 1 cent in airfare
Therefore, to know exactly how many miles you need to pay for a ticket, you need to multiply the price of that ticket by 100. You’re essentially redeeming miles as cash, although there may be restrictions where you can only redeem for travel purchases.
Read more about the difference between cash back and airline mile credit cards.