Can you use points to make flights cheaper?

You'll get more value by using them for high-priced travel experiences. But if you're a budget traveler who just wants to save a few bucks, use your points for that economy flight or low-category hotel redemption. The key is to have a use in mind before you start earning points.



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Using a combination of money and miles to save on your next flight is easier than ever before. When searching for your trip, select Money + Miles to see prices for each flight option as a combo of cash and miles. Then, at checkout you can customize how many miles you want to use to save cash on your trip.

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Book your flights for the middle of the week On those days, tickets are roughly 12% to 20% cheaper than flying on a weekend day. For economy tickets, prices on Tuesday and Wednesday are generally 24% lower than peak prices, saving you roughly $85 per ticket, CNET's Sophia Fox-Sowell reports.

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The value you can get for 20,000 miles varies based on the airline or credit card rewards scheme you're enrolled in. I've used the best credit cards for getting travel points for flights all around the world. Typically, this amount equates to a minimum of $200 in-flight rewards and travel benefits.

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100,000 Chase points are usually worth $1,010, whether you spend them on travel, cash back, gift cards, experiences or shopping. With a few Chase cards, 100,000 points can be worth 25% - 50% more when redeemed for travel through Chase Ultimate Rewards.

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Frontier Airlines offers the most rewarding domestic airline program, in terms of the value of miles earned. Both Alaska and Frontier still grant reward miles based on the number of miles flown versus flight cost.

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At 1.4 cents per point, you'll need around 21,400 points for a ticket that costs $300. On average, it will cost approximately 7,700 points to 16,000 points to travel with a Blue fare ticket (one of the airline's economy-class tickets) and 82,000 to 165,000 points for a Mint fare (or business/first-class) ticket.

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Tuesdays and Wednesdays are the cheapest days to fly domestically. The cheapest days to depart if you're flying within the U.S. are midweek — generally Tuesday or Wednesday. For economy tickets, Tuesdays are about 24% lower than peak prices on Sundays, which translates to savings of about $85 per ticket.

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More specifically, Tuesday at about 15:00 eastern time. This is because many airlines release weekly sales early on Tuesday, which creates competition between airlines to match prices.

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While booking your flight on a Sunday helps you get the lowest price, actually flying domestically on a Wednesday may help you save 15 percent off airfare. Data shows that, almost across the board, travelers who flew on Wednesdays instead of the beginning of a week saved this much on domestic flights.

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We sampled flight awards available with U.S. carriers and found that consumers need between about 8,000 and 57,000 miles to get a free one-way coach flight. Free flights in business or first class start at around 25,000 miles and climb to well over 150,000 miles one-way.

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It's rarely worth it to buy frequent flyer miles — especially without a bonus or discount. Airline and hotel programs generally price points and miles at such a high rate that it's hard to get more value than what you paid for them. Let's take Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan miles as an example.

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Flights are typically the cheapest when you book 3-6 weeks in advance for domestic or 2-4 months in advance for international. It also helps to travel in off-season for your destination. November and February are often cheap months to travel for this reason.

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