United Airlines introduced map-based flight search last year for revenue flights. And the increasingly revenue-based MileagePlus program now has this new feature as well. This allows filtering awards by non-stop vs. connection, dates, one-way vs. roundtrip, along with an “interest filter.”
Here’s an interest filter for beaches from my home city of Austin and one way or roundtrips available for up to 35,000 miles. The map search tool only has a flexible date feature for mileage awards currently, you cannot ask it where you can go over a specific set of dates. And it doesn’t let you specify the class of service either – this is all about coach.
If anything it’s striking to me how limited the options are for a MileagePlus flyer out of Austin, but the city is booming.
American Airlines, for its part, introduced an interactive award map back eight years ago.
Do you find this visual type of search, looking at multiple destinations at the same time, useful from a frequent flyer program?