Can I use miles to upgrade a ticket?

Can I upgrade a seat with miles? How do I upgrade?

These are some of the most common questions I get about points and miles.

Like so many things in life, the answer depends on your fare class, how you bought the ticket, and if the upgrade cost is reasonable to you.

I explain the ins and outs of this below, but here’s the TLDR answer: The only way to guarantee you’ll fly in a premium cabin is by reserving it when you book (in either points or cash). If you’re willing to take a chance, you can wait and see if there’s an opportunity to upgrade after booking.   

Three ways to upgrade your ticket

First, let’s define what it means to upgrade your seat. Upgrading with miles means you use your miles to pay to move up in cabin class. 

In general, there are three basic ways to upgrade a ticket. 

1. Airline elite status: This is when your status entitles you to automatic upgrades, pending availability. Scroll down and I’ll explain more about this later.
2. Paid upgrades: This method is pretty self-explanatory. You pay more cash to move up to the front of the plane.
3. Redeem points and miles to upgrade: This method is similar to a cash upgrade, but miles are the “currency” you use to upgrade. This is what we’re talking about today.

(And for any nitpickers reading, yes, you’re right: there may be additional ways to get upgrades such as holding Million Miler status or through a corporate account, but these will not apply to most folks.)

Tickets you cannot upgrade with miles

Before we jump into the how-to, it’s important to be aware that several types of tickets are ineligible for upgrades.  

• Award seats: You cannot upgrade seats you initially booked with points and miles. If you want to change cabins, you will need to cancel your award booking and rebook in your desired cabin. 
• Basic economy seats: You can’t use miles to upgrade a seat you purchased on a barebones fare. 

How to upgrade your seat with miles

Ok, you bought an eligible ticket with cash and you want to use some of your miles to upgrade. Let’s talk about how to do it. To start, you’ll want to log in to your airline account (either online or via the app) and find your upcoming reservations.

Here’s what you need to know about the major US carriers:

• ❌ Alaska Airlines: You cannot use miles to upgrade your ticket. You can redeem miles for a First Class ticket, or you can pay cash to upgrade on eligible tickets.
• ✅ American Airlines: You can upgrade one cabin level on American flights, pending availability. American publishes an upgrade mileage award chart that tells you how many miles it’ll cost you to upgrade. If your original ticket is a discount economy or discount business ticket, you will also have a cash copay in addition to the miles. 
• ✅ Delta Air Lines: Delta does not publish an upgrade award chart, however, if your reservation is eligible, you’ll see the option to upgrade and select seats for miles (or cash) in the MyTrips section. Delta also reports that you can upgrade with miles during booking, though when I tested this, I did not have enough miles in my account to have this option.
• ❌ Frontier Airlines: You cannot use Frontier miles to upgrade to its premium seat options, but you can use miles to book these seats.
• ❌ JetBlue Airways: Unfortunately, you cannot use TrueBlue points (JetBlue’s name for its “miles”) to upgrade to EvenMore Space (the airline’s name for Premium Economy seats). You’ll have to pay cash for this upgrade. On certain international and cross-continental flights, JetBlue offers “Mint” seats, its term for business class. Again, you cannot use points to upgrade to this cabin, but you could book these seats outright with TrueBlue points.
• ❌ Spirit Airlines: You cannot use Free Spirit points to upgrade to a Big Front Seat, its name for premium seats. You can book these seats with points, though. 
• ✅ United Airlines: United calculates award upgrades based on region, fare class, and elite status. You may have a cash copay for certain fare class codes. (The copay is waived for elite status members.)

Southwest does not currently offer a premium cabin.

Elite status

As I hinted before, airline elite status is a separate way to get a seat upgrade—and it even may be at no additional cost. 

(If you’re a regular reader of mine, you know I don’t put a lot of stock into earning elite status. But even I will admit that a complimentary seat upgrade is one of the biggest perks of holding airline elite status. And, this is one of the few perks that co-branded airline credit cards currently cannot duplicate.)

The exact timing and process vary by each airline, but in general, the way this works is the higher the tier of status you hold with an airline, the earlier and higher priority you are in line for a complimentary seat upgrade on your upcoming flight. 

The highest levels of elite status also often come with some form of upgrade certificate. Again, the exact name varies by the carrier, as do the amount of upgrade certificates, and regional limits, but they are basically coupons that you can redeem to upgrade your seat. 

Does carrying an airline-co-branded credit card help?

This one’s a little nuanced, too. At the most basic level, holding a co-branded airline credit card does not automatically entitle you to a seat upgrade. 

However, an airline card could help you in some indirect ways:

• Credit card signup bonuses can help you amass the miles you’d need to pay for an upgrade.
• Many premium co-branded credit cards offer head starts toward airline status, which if you attain it, can entitle you to complimentary upgrades.

All other things being equal, a premium credit card can give you a slight edge. If you hold the airline’s premium co-branded credit card and have elite status with the airline, you get priority over the elite status holder who doesn’t have the airline credit card.

One word of warning: premium travel cards that earn transferrable points do not help you get seat upgrades or earn elite status.  

How to decide if it’s worth it

“Can you upgrade?” is a technical question, but it’s almost as important to ask, “Should you upgrade?” too. 

Part of this answer is experiential: Do you want to fly in a premium cabin for a once-in-a-lifetime experience, or desire more comfort? Is the flight long enough to enjoy the extra perks the cabin offers?

The other part of this answer lies in the cold, hard dollars and cents. This helps you figure out if upgrading is a “good deal.”

To do this, you’ll want to translate the cost of the upgrade in miles into a cash equivalent. You’ll have to do some quick math—but I promise it’s not painful!

You just need three numbers:

1. The cash price of a seat upgrade. This is what it would cost you if you were paying in dollars and not miles. 
2. The number of miles for the upgrade.
3. The dollar copay, if applicable. 

Then, plug them into this formula:

‍Cents per miles = [(Cash price of the flight – cash copay) / the cost in miles] x 100

This gets us what we call “Cents per mile” or the actual cash value of miles in a specific redemption.

An exact example is hard to simulate since the cash costs of upgrades will vary. However, as a general guideline, a good deal is anything above 1.5 cents per mile.