I was told this, is it true? “Business Class award space to many destinations in Asia is extremely expensive right now. In most cases, we’re seeing prices 3 to 4 times higher than those often promoted by travel blogs. For example, a round-trip Business Class award ticket may realistically cost 450,000 to 600,000+ miles per person, plus any airline-imposed taxes and fees.”

Depends on how you frame it.

“expensive right now” -> wrong. It’s always been expensive. Also, it’s not unique to Asia. It’s the same for every continent.

“3-4 times higher than those promoted” -> correct. What’s wrong is to claim that this is a situation unique to today.

“realistically” -> aha! Here is the framing.

I’m going to modify this person’s statement to not twist the facts. Business Class award space to anywhere from the United States is extremely rare. It’s been extremely rare for 5+ years.

By extremely rare we mean that when you start planning your trip 3-6 months out (like most normal people) and you pull up the award prices, you never see the 70k prices that bloggers talk about. You see 450k prices, which is the airline’s dynamically priced cost.

It is only at the “what if I fly out this Wednesday” and “what about 12 months out from now?” and “oh right now Delta (or some airline) is running a sale of some spots to Taipei (and only Taipei!) for May-September flights, but they only have 4 seats in available dates and they sell out in 1-2 days” that you find those 70k-115k prices. And it’s not even every day, they randomly do not appear at 12 months for whatever reason (peak season, etc). It’s not reliable. There is some luck and some “you know what I’ll fly to another airport 2 hours away to catch my business class flight because that’s where I found a seat on my desired date”.

We call this situation “rare”. It’s extremely rare to find these business class tickets, and it involves luck and lots of work.

For someone for whom 1) “rare” is unacceptable or 2) doesn’t want to bother doing the work or 3) doesn’t want to bother changing travel dates or departure airports to meet the availability – in other words, just wants to go to Expedia and click and purchase, then yes, “realistically”, it’s 450k miles. Because “rare availability” is not an option for them.

That’s why it’s a matter of framing.

Here is the modified statement:

“Business Class award space at low prices to anywhyere out of the United States is extremely rare. To find those prices, you will need to plan your travel like a BTS Concert ticket purchase plan. If you don’t, then you will see prices 3 to 4 times higher than those often promoted by travel blogs.

If you don’t plan ahead and simply go to the airline’s website to press “buy”, you will only find 99% of round-trip Business Class award tickets at 450,000 to 600,000+ miles per person, plus any airline-imposed taxes and fees.”