How to Fly on Different Airlines

I spend at least a couple of hours everyday just reading more and more about miles and points, and even after a year of learning, I still get confused, or wonder how can I do that.

For instance, I received an email recently with a great deal to fly non-stop to Auckland from San Francisco, in business class, for 100K United Miles.

My first thought however is, how can I fly there using points when I don't have any United Miles?

Because the only ways to collect United Miles are by flying on their airline, or through using a co-branded US credit card, such as these ones you can get through Chase Bank:

Now, I know first hand, obtaining a US credit card through Chase Bank is not an easy process, as I recently just tried and was unsuccessful, mainly because I'm only starting to build my US credit history, and they need to see that I'm credit worthy before issuing me any credit card, but that I'll get into in a future article.

For now, if I wanted to fly on a United Airlines flights without having any United Miles, I'd only need to look to Air Canada and Aeroplan points.

WHAT!????

I can book a United airlines flight through Air Canada using Aeroplan points?

But how?

Well, just like my most recent article, A potential 2025 trip, where I talked about airline alliances, the same situation works here, as United is part of the Star Alliance, which Air Canada is part of too. Which means, you can search for United flights on Air Canada's website.

In fact, here is that exact flight I found on United's website (pic at top of article), also showing on Air Canada's website (pic below).

The bonus, it even costs less points when booking through Air Canada's website, only 75K Aeroplan points, vs 100K United Miles.

The reason being is in the spring of 2023, United made several changes to its unpublished saver award chart, increasing award prices by up to 122%. Unfortunately, travelers with United MileagePlus Miles must pay higher rates for the same awards as before.

However, as we just learned, if you have Aeroplan points, you can potentially book the same award for much cheaper.

This was the hardest thing to understand when I first started learning about miles and points.

I would see a flight on google flights, then go search it on Air Canada, bookable with points,, and it was never there. Why right.

Because airlines only release so many award availability to their partners, with some not releasing any, or releasing award seats last minute, which makes it very hard to find a flight you want to take by using the points you have.

It can all be very confusing, so here's an article by Prince of Travel, which is whom I get most of my information from, talking about how award availability works for airlines in much more detail then I can explain here.

What do you think about that!?