What is SeatSpy and Why We Love It

~ Chris Wada

SeatSpy is a simple award search tool that’s easy to use, shows plenty of availability all at once, and helps quickly identify the price for dynamic pricing.

What award programs does it cover?

While there can be changes to which airlines it can track, currently there are nine airlines SeatSpy tracks:

For each of the above, SeatSpy shows availability and point costs under each program’s own loyalty scheme.

How to use SeatSpy

Let’s say you sign up for an account, pay the subscription fee, and want to conduct a simple search. Our example will be looking up availability with Cathay Pacific on the route from Vancouver to Hong Kong.

First, just enter in those relevant details into the website.

Almost instantly, you’ll see months of detail at your fingertips. One of the biggest things we love about the site is how quickly the queries run and how many months you can see all at once. Cathay Pacific only shows availability for six months, unfortunately, but that doesn’t mean it’s not helpful.

Let’s say business class interests us. We can easily see from the circles above that the gray color represents economy, blue is premium economy, and green is business. Only three dates in the first six months on this route shows business class award space.

Hover over the date or click into it and you’ll see just how many seats are available in each cabin. The mileage rates reflect what Cathay Pacific would charge for the route.

Really interested in first class availability? Well, if you’re lucky enough, you’ll find that too (in red).

Don’t expect much to be available, and it certainly seems like Cathay adds more space in the days before departure.

Heatmaps in SeatSpy make it easier to understand pricing

It’s simple enough if the award program has flat pricing for award seats. But what about programs that use variable pricing for their awards? That’s where heatmaps come into play, which is another SeatSpy feature we like to use.

As an example, let’s look at Air France, which tends to have award pricing that bounces all over the place. Those who painfully search availability day-by-day would know the pain. The default search results aren’t very informative and just tells us seats are available when looking high-level at the results.

That’s where heatmaps come in. To activate heatmaps, just look on the lefthand side of the page after running an initial query. Tick the option to “On” and make sure only one cabin is selected.

You’ll then find a calendar full of color. The redder the color, the higher the price. The greener the color, the lower the price.

You could quickly identify December 14, 2025 as the date that looks the greenest. And, indeed, the pricing is excellent at 60,000 miles per seat in business class. It’d be nice if the coloring was a little more distinct, but having the feature is still very helpful.

Can you put in alerts for award availability?

Yes, you can set up alerts after logging into your account and running a search query for a route you want. After running your desired search, scroll to the bottom of the page to find a rather intense-looking section.

The alert functionality will show all flight options, but you can hover over specific flights to select and de-select what you want to find. Make sure your desired date, route, cabin, and number of passengers matches what you want. You can even specify a range of dates if you have flexibility. Once set, click the “Create Alert” button on the bottom.

If you ever want to check up on your alerts, just click the “Alerts” menu at the top of the page. From there, you’ll see which alerts exist and a button to check now, if you want. Sometimes it’s nice to just create an alert if you want to save a specific set of rules that define what you’re looking for.

Where SeatSpy falls short

Unfortunately, SeatSpy isn’t the best tool for everything. One big gap for the tool is only showing the availability for specific segments. Sometimes award programs charge lower rates if you’re connecting than if you’re flying nonstop. But you’d never know this occurs if you just stuck to SeatSpy.

The tool also does not include availability for any Star Alliance carrier. With such a limited number of airlines, it can greatly limit what you can do with the tool. What’s out there now is a good start, and the lack of airlines probably drives down the price of the subscription to cheap levels. Still, the paucity of airlines makes the tool feel a little more niche than others.

SeatSpy pricing

There are two options available for you if you want to subscribe to SeatSpy’s services.

Note this link is a referral link where I can earn credit towards a free subscription if you sign up. There is no need to use my referral link, but I appreciate it if you do.

Premium

SeatSpy offers a Premium subscription for $3.99/month or $39.90/year. It comes with unlimited searches and four active alerts, among other features. Frankly, if all you need is to search for availability on a handful of flights a year, this is probably what you want. You don’t need all the bells and whistles that comes with the more expensive category.

First Class

SeatSpy also offers a First Class subscription for $9.99/month or $99.90/year. On top of the unlimited searches, it also includes unlimited alerts, instant alert frequency, and SMS alerts. Basically, this matters the most for those who either have a lot of travel they need alerts for (perhaps a round-the-world-style trip?) or if you need immediate notice of availability.

Closing thoughts

SeatSpy is a great tool. It’s quick, shows a whole year’s worth of availability all at once, and even lets you see at a glance where the cheaper dates are for travel. The number of airlines is still on the smaller side and the tool only shows direct, nonstop routings. It’s not a perfect tool, but one that has more benefit than detriment.

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