One of the most common things I hear from families who want to travel on points is this: I live in a smaller city. There are no good award flights from here. I do not know where to start.

I hear you. Kansas City is not JFK. The direct award flight options from MCI are real but limited. And if you have ever tried to search for international award availability on a major airline website you already know how frustrating and opaque that process feels.

Here is what changed everything for me: two tools used together — one free and one with a $9.99 per month pro option — that answer both of the questions that stump most people.

Question one: which hub should I fly to in order to connect to my destination?

Question two: where are the actual award seats, and which loyalty program has them right now?

This is the exact workflow I used to book our family’s flights to the Canadian Rockies — through a program most people would never have thought to check — and it is the same workflow I used to get our family home from Lima, Peru when Qatar left us stranded with six people and no way home. More on that in a minute.

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What Is a Positioning Flight and Why Does It Matter?

A positioning flight is a short flight you take to get yourself to a bigger hub airport where better award availability exists. It is the solution to the small-city problem.

Think of it this way. If you want to fly business class to Tokyo on ANA points, those seats are not going to show up departing from Kansas City. They are going to show up departing from Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, or San Francisco. So you book a cheap flight or a Southwest points flight to Chicago — that is your positioning flight — and then you board your award flight to Tokyo from there.

The positioning flight is usually cheap or coverable with a small number of points. The award flight is where your big points balance goes to work.

The question everyone asks me: how do I know which hub to position to? That is exactly what FlightConnections answers.

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Tool 1: FlightConnections — Free, No Account Needed

Go to flightconnections.com.

Type your home airport into the search bar. The tool immediately populates a world map showing every direct route available from that airport. Every line on the map is a nonstop flight.

Now type your destination. The map updates to show which airports have direct flights to your destination.

The overlap between those two searches — the hub your home city can reach that also has a direct flight to your destination — is your positioning airport. That is where you fly to first before boarding your award flight.

For a family in Kansas City this typically means positioning through Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, New York, or Los Angeles for most international routes. FlightConnections shows you which one actually has the nonstop you need so you are not guessing.

This tool is completely free and takes about two minutes to use. No account required.

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Tool 2: seats.aero — Where the Award Seats Actually Are

Once you know which hub to search from, seats.aero tells you where the award availability is across 24 airline loyalty programs simultaneously.

This is the tool I mention in my Canadian Rockies reel. Not sponsored. I happily pay the $9.99 per month when I am actively booking travel because it saves me hours of clicking through individual airline websites and gives me information I cannot get anywhere else.

Here is how it works:

Free version

The free version searches award availability across 24 airline loyalty programs and shows seats for the next 60 days. You can also create unlimited email alerts for flight availability on the free plan. For families who are flexible on timing and planning a trip within the next two months, the free version is genuinely useful.

Pro version — $9.99 per month

The Pro version shows a full year of award availability with advanced filters and alerts. You can filter by loyalty program, cabin class, departure date, connection airports, aircraft type, and departure and arrival times. You can set alerts that notify you the moment a specific award seat opens up on a route you are watching — which matters because award space appears and disappears fast.

Pro members can also enable cardholder pricing for United MileagePlus and Delta SkyMiles directly within their seats.aero profile settings, which means your search will reflect the discounted award pricing available to eligible airline credit card holders instead of standard public pricing.

New in 2026 — the Chrome extension

seats.aero just launched a Chrome extension that overlays award pricing directly onto Google Flights search results. You can browse Google Flights the way you normally would and see award pricing from seats.aero right alongside the cash prices without switching tabs. If you are trying to decide whether to pay cash or use points for a specific flight, this makes that comparison instant.

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The Multi-City Code Feature That Changes Everything

Most people searching seats.aero type one airport at a time. That is the slowest and most incomplete way to use the tool.

seats.aero supports special multi-city codes that let you search across multiple airports simultaneously. Instead of searching Chicago to Paris and then New York to Paris and then Atlanta to Paris as three separate searches, you type USA in the origin field and Paris in the destination and seats.aero searches every major US airport at once.

Here are the codes worth knowing:

USA — searches SFO, LAX, JFK, EWR, ORD, ATL, IAD, IAH, DEN, MIA, SEA, DFW, and BOS simultaneously

EUR — searches AMS, ATH, BCN, BER, CDG, DUB, FRA, IST, LHR, MUC, MAD, FCO, MXP, ZRH, VIE, LIS, and CPH simultaneously

UKD — searches LHR, LGW, EDI, and MAN simultaneously

SCH — Schengen area airports

UAH — United Airlines hub airports

DLL — Delta Air Lines hub airports

AAH — American Airlines hub airports

MIW — Midwest airport codes

For families in the Midwest the most useful search is typing your regional airports separated by commas in the origin field — MCI, STL, MDW, MSP, IND for example — so seats.aero searches all of them at once and surfaces the best award availability across every Midwest departure point simultaneously.

Pro users can also create their own custom multi-city codes in settings — so you can save your personal airport cluster and pull it up every single time you search without retyping.

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Real Emergency Example: How seats.aero Got Our Family Home From Lima When Qatar Left Us Stranded

This is not a planning story. This is a this-is-happening-right-now story.

We were in Lima, Peru at the end of our family trip when our Qatar flights home fell through. Six people. No way home. A clock ticking.

I opened seats.aero on my phone and typed three things into the origin field: LIM, USA, MIW.

Lima. Every major US airport. The Midwest airports code. All searched simultaneously.

The results populated immediately — every award flight available from Lima across all 24 programs, showing me departure times, programs, and cabin availability in real time.

I spotted a United flight leaving Lima in 45 minutes to Houston. Award space available. I booked it on the spot.

Then I pulled up our Southwest Companion Passes and booked the second leg from Houston to Kansas City for taxes only.

Six people. Home. Crisis over.

That is the version of seats.aero that matters most. Not just for planning a dream trip six months out — but for the moment when your travel plans fall apart and you need to find award space faster than any airline website will ever show you.

The multi-city codes made that search possible in one shot. LIM to MIW showed me every Midwest-bound award flight departing Lima. I did not have to search Lima to Kansas City, Lima to Chicago, Lima to St. Louis, Lima to Houston separately. One search. All the options. The right flight jumping out immediately.

If you travel internationally more than once a year this tool is worth every penny of the $9.99 a month. Not because every trip is an emergency. But because when it is, you want this in your pocket.

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The Full Workflow Step by Step

Step 1: Use FlightConnections to find your positioning hub

Go to flightconnections.com. Enter your home airport. Enter your destination. Identify the hubs your home city can reach that also fly direct to your destination. Write down two or three options.

Step 2: Search award availability in seats.aero

Go to seats.aero. Type USA or MIW or your specific regional airports in the origin field. Type your destination. Filter by loyalty program — specifically the transfer partners of the flexible points you already hold. If you have Chase Ultimate Rewards filter for Chase transfer partners. If you have Capital One miles filter for their partners. This narrows results immediately to award space you can actually book.

Step 3: Identify which program has availability

seats.aero shows you which loyalty programs have award seats on your routes and on which dates. You might discover that Air Canada Aeroplan has business class availability from Chicago to your destination on a Tuesday or that Turkish Miles and Smiles has economy availability that week. That is your booking target.

Step 4: Transfer your points and book the award flight

Once you have found the award space, transfer your flexible points to that loyalty program and book directly with the airline. Do this before you book the positioning flight — the award seat is the scarce piece and you want it locked in first.

Step 5: Book your positioning flight

Now find your cheap or points-covered flight to the hub. Google Flights, Southwest points, or a small number of miles from another program. Use flexible dates to find the cheapest option. Build in at least three hours between your positioning flight and your award flight — they are on separate tickets and if you miss your connection it is your responsibility to rebook.

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How to Use seats.aero for a Safari

Safari is one of the best use cases for this entire workflow because flights to East and Southern Africa are extraordinarily expensive in cash and genuinely achievable on points if you know which programs to search.

The search: type USA in the origin, NBO for Nairobi or JNB for Johannesburg in the destination, and filter across all 24 programs. seats.aero shows you which loyalty programs have award space from any US hub to Africa and on which dates.

Flying Blue is one of the most reliable programs for East Africa. New York to Paris to Nairobi in premium economy starts around 65,000 miles one-way, often less during Flying Blue Promo Rewards sales. Kenya Airways flies nonstop to New York and can be booked with Delta, Flying Blue, and other SkyTeam programs for around 50,000 miles in economy.

For the lodge itself: World of Hyatt now allows members to book select safari lodges in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda on points through its Mr and Mrs Smith partnership. Marriott Bonvoy also has safari camp properties bookable on points. The small-plane transfers between camps, park fees, and ground transportation are typically cash — but if your international flights and your lodge are covered on points, the cash cost of those logistics is very manageable.

The same two-tool workflow — FlightConnections for routing, seats.aero with USA and the destination code for availability — works for every destination including Africa. The tool does not care where you are flying. It shows you the seats.

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Important Things to Know Before You Book

Award flights are not always free. Taxes and fees vary significantly by program and route. Some programs like British Airways charge high fuel surcharges on certain routes. Others like Air Canada Aeroplan and Flying Blue have much lower fees on the same flights. Always check the full out-of-pocket cost including taxes before you transfer points.

Positioning flights and award flights are on separate tickets. If your positioning flight is delayed and you miss your award flight, the airline operating the award flight has no obligation to help you. Build in buffer time and consider travel insurance that covers missed connections on separate tickets.

Award space changes constantly. If you find availability and you are ready to book, move quickly. Set alerts in seats.aero for routes you are watching so you catch availability when it opens.

Check back regularly. Award seats are sometimes released in waves or become available last minute as travel dates approach. If your first search comes up empty, set an alert and check back.

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A Note on Other Useful Tools

seats.aero is my go-to but a few others are worth knowing:

Point.me — searches award availability across multiple programs, particularly user-friendly for beginners. Paid subscription.

The combination of FlightConnections for routing and seats.aero for availability covers the core of what most families need to find and book award flights from any city.

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The Cards That Make This Possible

The entire workflow above depends on having flexible points that transfer to the loyalty programs where the award space lives. That means earning points in transferable currencies rather than airline or hotel-specific programs.

The cards I would open first to build a flexible points balance are on my best offers page, ranked in the order I would open them:
Best Offers Here

New to points and miles entirely? My free Blueprint course walks you through the whole system from scratch before you open a single card