Tips for scoring the award seats you want with the frequent-flier miles you have

Skift Take

Award seats are harder to find than ever due to schedule cuts causing fewer flights and higher fares. This means mileage holders are fighting for a seat months before their travel dates.

For airline mileage mavens, Labor Day is the unofficial start date for booking prime holiday and spring-break trips.

As summer ends, travelers start looking to turn frequent-flier miles into future trips. Photo by Soon.

As summer ends, many travelers begin planning their next year's worth of vacations—and hunting for the most generous frequent-flier award tickets to get them there.

While new data show how hard that quest can be, there are ways to improve the odds. ExpertFlyer.com, an automated service that can alert shoppers when award seats open up on particular flights at desired mileage levels, says its average success rate at scoring desired seats has hovered at about 55% to 60% since 2009, said President Chris Lopinto. That's down from about 70% in 2006 to 2009.

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