The Ultimate Guide to Booking Flights on Budget Airlines With Points and Miles

From Frontier Airlines in the U.S. to Ryanair in Europe and AirAsia in Asia, you’ve probably flown a low-cost airline at least once on your travels. These airlines offer low-cost fares with no extras like seat selection, bags, or drinks included with your fare. After all, that’s their business model: Get you from A to B as cheaply as possible, and charge you for every extra.

Sometimes referred to as “budget airlines,” low-cost airlines often operate routes that are underserved by major airlines. For example, Allegiant Air and Spirit Airlines are the only carriers regularly serving Atlantic City (ACY) in New Jersey. Meanwhile, Avelo Airlines and Breeze Airways are the only 2 airlines that serve New Haven (HVN) in Connecticut.

Some budget airlines have loyalty programs, but aren’t generally transfer partners of major transferable points programs like American Express Membership Rewards or Chase Ultimate Rewards. Likewise, budget airlines may not be bookable through your credit card’s travel portal.

Booking a flight on a budget airline with travel rewards requires creativity. Here, I’ll show you the best ways to do it and what to consider before you book a flight on a budget airline.

What To Consider Before Booking a Budget Airline

Booking a flight with a budget or ultra-low-cost carrier isn’t as simple as it seems. The price you see on the airline’s website or through an online travel agent (OTA) like Expedia or Orbitz isn’t necessarily what you’ll actually pay for your ticket.

This is true of ultra-low-cost carriers like Ryanair, where fares are unbundled, and everything from a carry-on bag to seat selection has an extra fee. Instead, the price you see is your ticket from A to B for you and, generally, a personal item like a backpack or purse.

Before booking a budget airline with points or cash, price the whole ticket and compare it to an economy ticket with a full-service airline. For example, we priced a Ryanair flight from Copenhagen (CPH) to London (STN) for $26.45. Adding a full-size carry-on bag and a reserved seat with the Regular fare bundle brings the total flight cost to $64.74.

A comparable basic economy flight from Copenhagen (CPH) to London (LHR) on British Airways costs under $82 and includes a full-size carry-on bag. You may also be eligible to earn Avios with The British Airways Club or miles with a Oneworld partner program, like American Airlines AAdvantage.

Further, it’s worth considering that the Ryanair flight lands at London Stansted Airport (STN), over an hour from Central London by train. London Heathrow Airport (LHR), where the British Airways flight lands, is under 50 minutes away from Central London if you take the new Elizabeth Line, or even shorter with the Heathrow Express.

Budget airlines sometimes use smaller airports like Stansted, further from the city center, to save on landing fees and other costs. Be sure to check the cost of transit from these smaller airports to your hotel and budget extra time for travel.

Hot Tip:

There are different calibers of budget airlines. Airlines like Ryanair and EasyJet are considered ultra-low-cost carriers and charge extra for everything from seat selection to carry-on bags. Meanwhile, Southwest is a more traditional budget airline and will let you bring a full-size carry-on bag for free, regardless of your fare.

How To Book Budget Airline Flights With Points and Miles

If flying on a budget carrier still makes sense for your upcoming travel plans, here are a few ways to cover the cost of your tickets with points and miles. These options range from using the airline’s own loyalty program to cashing out transferable points to pay yourself back for the flight.

Book With the Budget Airline’s Loyalty Program

Some U.S. budget and ultra-low-cost carriers have loyalty programs, such as Frontier Miles, Free Spirit, and Southwest Rapid Rewards. If you have miles with these programs — or if you can earn them easily — you may want to redeem them before dipping into your transferable credit card points.

Budget airline loyalty programs tend to offer a fixed value for points. For example, we value Southwest Rapid Rewards at 1.3 cents per point, and you’ll rarely (if ever) get more value than that since Southwest ties the price of an award ticket to the cash price of a flight.

Unfortunately, most budget and ultra-low-cost carriers with a loyalty program do not have transfer partners. Southwest is the only exception here, as you can transfer Chase Ultimate Rewards and Bilt Rewards points to Rapid Rewards.

Further, many international budget and ultra-low-cost carriers do not have loyalty programs. This includes Ryanair, EasyJet, and Smartwings, which you’re likely to fly if you’re on a multistop tour of Europe. If that’s the case, you’ll need to redeem transferable points to cover your flights with rewards.

Check for Partnerships With Major Airlines

Some major airlines partner with budget airlines to increase their connectivity worldwide. For example, the Brazilian budget carrier Gol partners with American Airlines and Air Canada. United Airlines partners with Eurowings, and the Spanish ultra-low-cost airline Vueling partners with other airlines owned by International Airline Group (IAG), like British Airways and Iberia.

See the table below for a nonexhaustive list of these partnerships. Each partnership below lets you redeem points from the listed loyalty program on the listed low-cost airline. More partnerships exist, and you can find them on airline partner pages.

Redemption rates vary based on the loyalty program and route you choose to fly. Whether or not you’ll get a good deal depends on the cash cost of the flight, so do your own research and compare the cash cost of a ticket before you book it with miles.

For example, this round-trip Gol ticket from Miami (MIA) to Brasília (BSB) costs roughly $670. For reference, this is a Light fare that includes a full-size carry-on bag but no seat selection or checked luggage.

You can book the same round-trip ticket for 60,000 American Airlines AAdvantage miles plus just under $37 in taxes and fees. Gol economy flights booked with American miles include a full-size carry-on, but no seat selection or checked luggage.

This gives you roughly 0.96 cents per mile, which is well below our valuation of 1.4 cents per AAdvantage mile. In this case, we’d recommend saving your miles for another trip and paying for the ticket.

Redeem Points Through Your Credit Card’s Travel Portal

Most transferable points cards have a travel booking portal where you can book travel with your points. These portals let you book any flight with your points at a fixed rate, usually 1 cent per point, but some exceptions exist. For example, select Chase cardholders can redeem Ultimate Rewards points at Chase Travel for up to 2x points via Points Boost, and Bilt Mastercard (rates & fees) cardholders can redeem Bilt Points at 1.25 cents per point through the Bilt Travel Portal.

Unfortunately, not all budget carriers are available through these portals. Namely, you can’t book most ultra-low-cost budget carriers through AmexTravel.com, Chase Travel, or Citi Travel. On the flip side, most U.S. budget airlines are bookable through the Bilt Travel Portal and Capital One Travel.

Namely, I found Condor, EasyJet, and Vueling flights through the Bilt and Capital One portals. SmartWings — a Czech ultra-low-cost airline — is also bookable through Capital One Travel, but not the Bilt Travel Portal.

You won’t find Ryanair flights on any credit card travel portal. The airline only works with select online travel agencies (OTAs) with official partnerships. Unfortunately, this does not include any of the major U.S. credit card travel portals.

Below you’ll find a nonexhaustive list of budget and ultra-low-cost airlines and which credit card travel portals you can book them through. This information is current as of the time of writing this article, but carriers may have been added or removed since publication.

Cash Out Your Transferable Points To Cover the Cost of a Flight

You still have options if your flight isn’t bookable through a travel portal. Most credit card points can be cashed out as a statement credit or a direct deposit to your bank account. Redemption rates vary but tend to be between 0.4 cents per point and 1.1 cents per point. The rate depends on which credit card you have.

You can cash out points and reimburse yourself for a flight on a budget airline in a pinch. For example, you can cash out Chase Ultimate Rewards points at 1 cent per point. This means you can redeem 5,000 points to cover a $50 flight on any airline.

Capital One miles are the best for this purpose. The program lets you cover travel charges directly with miles at a rate of 1 cent per mile, effectively wiping them off your statement. This can be any travel expense, including airfare, hotel stays, Uber rides, and public transit. You can book whichever budget airline you’d like and use the “Cover travel purchases” feature on Capital One’s website to reimburse yourself for the ticket cost.

Redeeming Capital One miles or Chase Ultimate Rewards points for 1 cent per point in value isn’t the best value. After all, it’s easy to get over 2 cents per point in value if you leverage transfer partners. That said, it can come in handy if the airline you’d like to book with miles isn’t bookable with miles and you don’t want to pay for your ticket out of pocket.

Always Consider Paying for Your Flights Outright

Budget carriers — as the name suggests — are low-cost at their core. This tends to ring true, especially if you book in advance.

Take this flight from Las Vegas (LAS) to the Los Angeles area, for example. According to Google Flights, you can book flights to Burbank (BUR) in October for as little as $21 on Spirit. Frontier and Southwest flights to Los Angeles (LAX) cost $28 and $32, respectively.

In this case, you may be best off buying a ticket outright instead of redeeming your hard-earned points or miles. This way, you can save your points for a higher-value redemption. This could lead to bigger savings later, especially if you’re planning a trip abroad.

In some cases, it might be worth paying for a ticket on a full-service carrier if the price is right. On the same date, you can fly from Las Vegas to Los Angeles on Delta or United for just $39 one-way in basic economy. If you’d like the ability to change your ticket and select a seat, a ticket in Delta’s Main Cabin Classic fare type costs $69 one-way.

Award tickets on Delta aren’t expensive either. If you have Delta SkyMiles available, you can find award tickets on this route starting at just 2,500 SkyMiles. Plus, if you have an eligible Delta co-branded American Express card, you can book a Delta ticket for just 2,100 SkyMiles thanks to the TakeOff 15 benefit.

Final Thoughts

Budget airlines like Spirit, Frontier, and Ryanair are a great way to get from A to B as cheaply as possible. While booking these airlines with transferable points or airline miles is more difficult than with full-service airlines, it’s sometimes possible depending on your points and the airline you’d like to fly.

You can book some budget airlines through credit card portals or through partnerships with major airline loyalty programs. Alternatively, you can cash out your transferable points to cover the cost of your ticket. In many cases, however, you might consider buying a ticket outright, as tickets on these airlines are often extremely cheap when you book in advance.