Last month, I wrote how much Virgin Atlantic charges for every El Al route.
Several readers were unable to find any award space, so I’ll discuss the nuts and bolts of how to do that.
In this post from last week, I wrote the award rates needed to fly on El Al between Boston, Fort Lauderdale, JFK, Los Angeles, Miami, or Newark, and Tel Aviv.
You can currently book award travel on El Al using miles from Alaska, Delta, El Al, Etihad, Qantas, or Virgin Atlantic.
The best way to find El Al award space is by using the Virgin Atlantic website.
Click on Reward flights, one-way trip, and choose between Economy, Premium, or Upper Class (Business). Search for NYC to include JFK and Newark.
By default, the Virgin site will only search for availability during the week that you searched, so I got this error:
No big deal, if you’re flexible just keep changing the date by a week until you find something:
Note that if you get the older version of the Virgin website, it will be a little trickier to search for NYC. Here’s how to do it.
TLV won’t pop up as a destination for NYC on this site:
Click on the destination field and then on “Full Airport List:”
Then click on Alphabetically and scroll down to (or ctrl-F to search for) TLV:
TLV will now be the destination city. Click on “Show Flexible Dates” and click on “Advanced Search” to “show price in points:”
Change the dates until you get a match. Now you can click on “Price Calendar” to view a whole month of availability in your desired cabin:
And then click on “Filter” to select direct flights only:
A month-view of JFK-TLV nonstop business class award space:
Click the arrow forward and you’ll be able to see other months, but if there’s an entire month without availability, you’ll get an error and will have to start again. Just search starting with a month later in that case. Or try another route or class of service.
If you’re searching NYC-Tel Aviv or JFK-Tel Aviv and filter for direct flights only, Virgin will search for Delta and El Al availability, though Delta business class award space is a true unicorn.
But you can click through to confirm the airline that Virgin is finding award space for:
Virgin isn’t a cheap way of booking El Al awards, but there are other options.
Through the end of July, you can still book El Al awards using Alaska miles. Redeeming 75,000 for a $3,000 flight is a value of an excellent 4 cents per miles, which would value the signup bonus on the Alaska card at some $2,500!
Another good option is with Qantas points, though the airline oddly blocks availability on many El Al flights:
Delta Skypesos is a typically poor option, but note that rates are cheaper if you fly round-trip.
You can also book travel with Etihad. I’d recommend using the Virgin site to find availability and then call Etihad to book at 877-690-0767.
See this post for the price comparison between all of these options on all of El Al’s North American routes!
Have you redeemed miles to fly on El Al?
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38 Comments On "Here Is How To Find And Book El Al Award Bargains"
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Booked with Etihad.
Flying next week!
Awesome, nesiah tova!
When can we expect to see elal award space being on klm flying blue or air France?
I’d guess sometime this year.
Thanks!
What a great post!!!
We went in May with AF. IAD to CDG on AF, and CDG to TLV on El Al using Citi miles. Shows same schedule for KLM since the merger.
Nice post.
I’ve used Delta – fantastic sweet spot for flights to Asia – 70k in J to Japan or Thailand..
Otherwise I often use Qantas
What’s the prices on Etihad?
https://www.dansdeals.com/points-travel/milespoints/master-list-best-ways-book-el-al-award-flights-north-america-tel-aviv/
Hard to find ELAL award space to Thailand or Japan, any tricks to find those?
The exact same method as NYC-TLV.
i booked elal with 70k alaska in J
VA upper class on the return via LHR 45,300
Nice!
Superb ELAL post. If booking with Alaska and have to cancel flifht for some reason, any way to somehow use those Alaska points to get an ELAL flight after July? Transfer those Alaska points somehow to another airline thathas accessto ELALflights?
Nope, but Alaska is also partners with AA, which is scheduled to resume TLV service in October.
Can rely on that? RE: AA scheduled to resume Oct 26
You are a navi. I was just trying to figure this out last night!
LOL
I find that Firfox browser works best for Virgin
Does El Al add availability as flight date approaches? Any way to predict ?
It changes constantly.
I booked flights on EL AL through Delta using my Delta miles for 70,000 in March R/T
I didn’t know how to book directly on EL AL with my Delta miles
Nice!
Virgin site can be very bogous and huge waste of time, but if you get it working, you can find bargains there. I was looking for flights from a European country to tlv in aug, prices on the flight are very expensive now, and awards on FlyingBlue partners are also very high priced. Delta was much more reasonable, but Virgin was drastically cheaper.
I booked El Al as well as ITA through Virgin. It was a great pain with their site bugs are errors, but I finally got a hold of it. Also called Virgin and after a very long wait they were extremely nice and patient and did whatever I needed in a quick manner.
A big plus of Virgin is also that you can transfer miles to other Virgin members for a small fixed fee of just $15, so I transferred from Amex and from other Virgin members and booked a relatively affodable flight.
BTW, there were great nyc/europe redemptions on aa, including bussiness and flagship first class (first class just 80k a one way direct), but prices quickly go up and soar as people book.
If you get an error, just try an incognito browser. The site doesn’t like it when you make too many requests.
Tried that, same results (when the site returned errors).
decent amount of aa tlv-jfk direct and jfk-tlv available with partner awards in all cabins
Which dates have business class?
@dan @jj
How does it work with booking a infant on elal via alsaka points?
Great post!!!
Is using the Virgin site as reccomended here significantly better than using the Alaska site?
Thanks!
Yes, as you can’t filter the Alaska search for nonstop flights.
Can I upgrade with miles my elal ticket that I bought
yes
Strange. When i wanted to upgradey seat purchased with points, they said that I had to pay cash directly through ElAl. I made the res through chase ultimate rewards portal. So it has to be you did with Elal miles?
Strange new world…Using Etihad to book El Al flights?
Just booked elal direct (outbound) and one stop (ams inbound) through Qantas. Was a hassle but finally figured it out. Thanks!
You can use Capital one miles to book on Elal? Or you have to transfer to Delta moles first?
when serching va there is a common trick to get to price calendar, all you need to do is change the url from “?dates” to “?calendar”