The best airlines for holiday travel on points

If you’re seeing Halloween decorations at the store, you should take that as a sign the holiday travel season is just around the corner. Cue the expensive flights! If you’re relying on points and miles to cover the cost, you might want to consider whether booking award flights for the holidays is the best use of your travel rewards.

In NerdWallet’s annual analysis of airline mile values, holiday flights in December often didn’t provide the highest per-mile value compared with flights booked 180 days out or 15 days out from the date of departure. With flight prices up 43% from last year, according to the latest Consumer Price Index data, you’ll likely have to use a lot of miles to pay for the flight. If you’re a points and miles maximizer, you probably would prefer to save your miles for a time of year when you might be able to get more value.

But if fares are getting too expensive, you may choose to book award flights instead. The best airline for holiday award travel based on the value of its points is a four-way tie among American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Southwest Airlines and Frontier Airlines.

Here’s how we came to that conclusion, plus more advice on how to shop holiday flights on points.