The engineering behind
AwardSecrets
Many consumer award search tools rely on web scraping — running automated scripts against airline websites. That can mean stale cached data, breakage when airlines update their sites, and phantom availability that disappears when you try to book.
AwardSecrets takes a fundamentally different approach. We search airline inventory through our own connection to a Global Distribution System (GDS), under our travel-industry accreditation: the distribution infrastructure travel agencies use.
❌ Consumer scrapers:
Airline Website → Cloudflare/Anti-Bot → Headless Browser → Fragile DOM Parsing → Cached, hours-old data
✅ AwardSecrets:
Airline Inventory (PSS) → GDS Central Network → Structured API → Checked when you search, verified seat counts
What this means for you
⚡ Live inventory, not stale scrapes
Searches query airline award inventory through the GDS, not scraped websites. A result can be re-used for up to 12 hours to answer a repeat question, and answers say when a result was checked; route pages show recent verified sightings with their age. Always confirm with the programme before transferring points.
🛡️ Anti-phantom filtering
Proprietary filtering identifies and removes seat counts we can’t verify, the kind that show up as phantom availability elsewhere.
🔧 Unaffected by website redesigns
When an airline redesigns its website, web scrapers can break. Our GDS connection is unaffected — it communicates through standardized aviation protocols, not website HTML.
💰 Best-value points arbitrage
We price each seat across every loyalty programme that can book it, from published award charts, flag programmes that add high carrier surcharges, and show which credit card points transfer there, so you can avoid an airline’s own dynamic pricing where a cheaper partner chart exists.
How we price a seat in points
Finding a seat is half the answer; the other half is what it costs. For every flight we find, we work out the price in each loyalty programme that can book it, the way that programme would:
- From published award charts. More than a dozen programmes publish what they charge for partner flights. We hold those charts, dated, read from each programme's own site or calculator, and audit our pages against them.
- By each programme's own rules. Distance-based or region-based; one award for a whole journey, or flight by flight; peak and off-peak dates; one-stop journeys priced via the airline's hub, as the programme would price them.
- With the catches stated. Round-trip-only programmes (ANA; Korean Air charges the same for one way), high carrier surcharges, phone-only booking: each flagged next to the price.
- With the cards that get you there. For each programme, the credit-card points that transfer to it.
- Without guessing. Programmes that price dynamically (Delta, United, Flying Blue) are named but never given an invented number.
See it on any route page, for example ANA The Room, or in the FAQ.
Airlines scrapers often miss
Because we query the GDS directly, we can surface premium award inventory on carriers that scraper-based tools often struggle to reach. These airlines don't expose their best award space on consumer websites in a scrape-friendly format — but we surface it:
CX
JL
QR
IB
QF
MH
VS
AM
FJ
UL
OZ
FI
↑ The hard-to-find carriers. Cathay Pacific, Japan Airlines, Qatar Airways, Iberia, Qantas, Malaysia, Virgin Atlantic, Aeromexico, Fiji Airways, SriLankan, Asiana, and Finnair — premium cabin award space most tools simply can't see.
Plus many more
We search these alongside the carriers above (55+ airlines in all), choosing the ones relevant to each route:
UA
AA
DL
AC
AF
KL
BA
LH
LX
OS
SN
TK
EK
NH
KE
AS
EI
AY
NZ
VA
A3
AI
ET
SV
GA
VN
CI
LA
SK
BT
OK
OU
RO
HU
FM
MF
ZH
PG
KQ
MS
AT
TN
G3
Gold-highlighted carriers above represent premium cabin availability (Business & First) that is typically invisible to web scrapers.
Airline names and codes are shown for identification purposes only. AwardSecrets is an independent, ARC-accredited search service and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by any airline listed.
What we're honest about
We believe in data integrity over inflated claims. There are airlines we intentionally don't show because the data would be unreliable:
Singapore Airlines
Singapore Airlines keeps its award inventory in its own KrisFlyer programme rather than releasing it to the GDS, in any cabin. We won't show phantom SQ results: search singaporeair.com directly. We can still price Singapore flights you find there in the programmes that book them.
Airlines whose award space we can't see
EVA Air, TAP Air Portugal, Etihad, Royal Jordanian, LOT, Azul, Malta Airlines, Thai Airways and China Southern don't release award inventory to the systems we observe. We tested Thai and China Southern again in October 2026, across several months of dates, and found none. Searches naming these airlines say so rather than returning an empty result.
Lufthansa First Class (14-day rule)
Lufthansa only releases First and Business Class awards to GDS partners within 14 days of departure. Our scanners monitor this window specifically.
Emirates First Class
Emirates has decoupled premium inventory from the open GDS. First Class awards require Emirates Skywards or authenticated NDC integration.
We'd rather tell you honestly that we found nothing than show you a phantom result that wastes your time.