If you’re used to booking flights “the normal way”, ie. Google Flights, Skyscanner, or directly on an airline’s website, then we totally understand that opening up this Cheat Sheet might seem overwhelming.

Points & Miles, Award Flights, Loyalty Programs, Airline Alliances, all words and terms you may have heard before, but never actually looked into.

Well this introduction is here for that very reason. To help you get a glimpse into what this world actually is at a high level, before you try to use anything inside this cheat sheet.

Here’s a super quick introduction to get you started on your journey in the points booking space.

Let’s start with what you’re probably used to:

When you book flights with cash, the system is simple: → You search for a route → You compare prices → You pay money → You get a ticket

The price changes constantly. If demand is high on a specific flight, prices go up. But if demand is low, prices go down.

This is what you’ve likely been used to for all travel bookings, like most people are.

The points world runs alongside the regular booking cash world.

Its simply another way to book flights. Instead of paying purely with money, you pay with points (and a cash component covering Taxes&Fees and/or Fuel Surcharges)

These points are created by and live through airline loyalty programs (or called frequent flyer programs). Basically every airline has there own program or is a part of a shared program. If you’ve ever booked a flight before you’ve certainly encountered something like “enter your loyalty to earn miles on this flight” or similar.

Most people think that “points are useless unless you buy premium tickets or travel super frequently. If you don’t tick those boxes, you’ll never get enough for a ticket…”

Well, lucky for you that’s not true at all! The world of points is not just for the rich or frequent travelers. It’s for those who want to make the most of the system.

An Important thing to understand early:

The airline operates the plane The loyalty program issues the points and decides how many points an “award seat” costs.

The interesting thing with Loyalty Programs is, they are not only tied to the airline they represent, since most large airlines have partner airlines and/or are a part of an “alliance”.

The main thing to understand here is this → Points from Loyalty Program A allows you to book flights from Airline A, but also Airline B, C and D, etc. That’s how the system is designed.

As we just shared, airlines operate with alliances and partnerships, which allow them to share flights with each other.

Very Simply This means:

This is where most high-value bookings come from.

So to be perfectly clear, you’re not limited to:

That belief keeps people stuck in economy.

When you book with cash, prices are constantly changing. Sometimes all it takes is refreshing the page and the price will suddenly have gone up.

Well, when you book with points, prices are often based on distances and regions, and won’t fluctuate in price with demand on any given day - instead if it’s high demand, it would simply not be available once the award-seat supply runs out

And different loyalty programs price flights in different ways (ie they have their own “calculations” for their specific points)

This is why the same exact flight can cost wildly different amounts of points depending on which points/miles program you are booking through.

Airlines release a limited number of award seats, meaning not every seat on the plane is up for grabs with points. So this also means → Once they’re gone, they’re gone.

This is why you hear the frustrations, or may even have experienced it yourself, where you’ve finally saved up enough points for a flight, and then as you’re getting excited to book something, it’s seemingly never available.

This is the nature of the Points world - but the good news is you’re here!

99.9% of people who “collect” points or miles from their travels or credit cards, they have no idea how to optimize for success. They don’t use any tools or do any deeper research about when seats are released.

They simply try to book the exact dates they want on the exact return trip itinerary, with the same airline they always fly.

You might get lucky this way, but your chances of success are slim! That’s why you’ve come to the right place.

Booking with points feels incredible, because it lets you play a game with a system, and when you use the right system you get to win that game.

But there is one variable that gets annoying sometimes, the cash component of award bookings.

Most points bookings include both Taxes & Fees as well as Fuel Surcharges - but these rates vary ALOT. But that doesn’t matter too much because we simply consider this in our points booking calculations to see if the math still makes sense.

that’s where the Finally Business Business Class Calculator comes in.

In this beautiful world of scoring 60-80% discounts on Business Class travel, flexibility is your greatest point of leverage.

Flexibility comes in many different forms - but we narrow this down to 3 main pillars:

Timing, Location and Cost.

Timing doesn’t just mean when you travel, it also means when you book. Stand out from everyone else in the crowd and actually try to plan your trips far enough in advance to lock in the best business class options. And if the exact dates you want aren’t available, consider having a few days flexibility on either side as you plan.

Location isn’t just where you travel to but also where you travel from. You can consider repositioning (ie traveling cheaply to a nearby city or country) in order to lock in the long haul segment of your trip in an amazing Business Class product. Another thing you could consider is booking in advance, and simply looking at where the best flights take you - a pretty awesome new way of opening up new destination options!

Cost isn’t just the total price, its also the denominator (ie. the points/miles you use) and that’s where this Cheat Sheet becomes your trusted tool - you’ve got all the links you need here to make it all happen.

Being flexible is often the difference between:

You don’t need to be flexible on everything, but staying flexible on 2 out of the 3 mentioned above typically sets you up for success!

This cheat sheet is not here to encourage you to

This Business Class Cheat Sheet is designed to:

If all you take away from this introduction is this, it’s enough:

You don’t need to understand everything yet. You just need to know that you can play the travel-hacking game.

Once that clicks, everything else inside this product will start making total sense.

You’ve got all the tools you need, now you just need to continue learning about the ins&outs to build your own strategy.