Award Search Tools

Best Award Flight Search Tools for UK Travellers

Reward Flight Finder

This website is very similar to one of the search tools on the Avios website, but I do like their layout.

You can see availability side by side for inbound and outbound flights. On the free version, you can view availability in economy and have the option to highlight peak and off-peak days. The peak and off-peak option is the most valuable, in my opinion, because it helps you identify the days when you’ll need fewer Avios.

Screenshot from Reward Flight Finder website

Reward flight redemptions when using the BA Amex Companion Voucher, and especially the Barclays Upgrade Voucher, will help you save both time and money. The Avios website has a similar search tool for BA flights, where you can see Economy, Premium Economy, Business and First Class availability on BA flights for free. However, with RFF the search is quicker because you have more information on the same screen.

Screenshot from BA website

The ability to set alerts for specific flights, routes, and times on RFF is the best feature, in my opinion. Availability to Brazil is really competitive, even more so when it’s last-minute, however, using the paid version in comparison with the next tool I will talk about, I recommend using this one only on the Free version.

Seat Spy

This one is the best, in my opinion, for Avios searches. If you’ve followed me for a while on Instagram, you know that I love booking tickets with Iberia. If it’s last-minute, I’ll use BA, but for all my planned trips to Brazil, Iberia is my go-to. You can book Business Class flights for a lot fewer Avios and taxes, even after considering the short flight from the UK to Madrid.

So Seat Spy is the best of the best because you can check availability with BA and Iberia, plus Cathay Pacific, Etihad, American Airlines, JetBlue, KLM, Virgin Atlantic, and Air France.

If you’re like me and Beta, and you have Amex Membership Rewards points and love trying different Business Class cabins, this search tool will save you a lot of time and money.

With the free version, you can view peak and off-peak economy flights. You can also see the number of seats available, but not the amount of taxes or fees.

screenshot from seat spy website

Seat Spy offers a 14-day free trial and two paid plans: Premium (£2.99/month) and First Class (£7.99/month). Both are quite similar, with differences mainly in the number and frequency of alerts, as well as text and Telegram notifications.

In my opinion, Seat Spy has made RFF somewhat obsolete, especially when comparing prices. The free version of RFF is better than Seat Spy’s, but with the 14-day free trial, you can enjoy Seat Spy completely free for two weeks. I highly recommend this tool if you have either a Companion Voucher or a Barclays Upgrade Voucher, use the free 14-day trial or, at most, pay for one month.

Seats aero

And the third one, and the most famous, is Seats aero. This tool covers a higher number of airlines and partners, including hotels. But you have to know how to read the information.

Green availability is for direct flights, and blue is for flights with connections. Seats aero doesn’t have Iberia or BA as direct partners, but when you select, for example, Alaska Airlines, it will show Iberia and BA flights because Alaska is part of the oneworld alliance.

Seats aero also uses specific city codes that group major airports from each country. For example, BRL will show you all major airports in Brazil.

Screenshot from Seats aero

Each of these search tools has its place. We could write an endless number of posts about them, but time is the most valuable thing, for us and for you.

That’s why we created Fly Smart Accelerator, where you’ll find step-by-step video lessons showing you exactly how to implement everything without needing to jump from website to blog to search tool.

Speak soon.