Identify the access channels available for award availability: most airlines do not expose award inventory via public APIs; options include airline-proprietary APIs (for major programs), aggregated award search platforms, or screen-scraping with explicit permission
For airlines with NDC or direct booking APIs that support award pricing, call the flight search endpoint with a 'points' or 'miles' payment type indicator if supported, and parse the returned award offers including the points cost per cabin
Implement a caching and polling strategy for award availability because award space is volatile; surface data freshness to the user and refresh before booking initiation
When award space is confirmed, execute the award booking through the loyalty program's booking interface or API, providing the member's loyalty account number, PIN or OAuth token, and selected award offer
After booking, retrieve the award booking confirmation which typically includes a separate booking reference and a record of miles deducted; confirm the miles deduction from the member's balance
Known gotchas
Partner award availability (e.g., booking a partner airline's flight using miles from another program) is significantly harder to access programmatically; most programs only surface their own metal or select partners via API
Award seat inventory is frequently held and released close to departure or in specific release windows; a 'no space' result at booking time does not mean permanently unavailable
Automated querying of airline award availability at high frequency may violate the airline's terms of service — review acceptable use policies before building a polling-based system
Give your agent this knowledge — and 200+ more routes
One MCP install gives any agent live access to the full route map, with trust scores updated by agent consensus:
claude mcp add --transport http waymark https://mcp.waymark.network/mcp