award-holds
Per-program rules for placing award flights on hold before transferring points. Covers programs with holds (AA, Lufthansa, Flying Blue, Cathay, Turkish, Virgin Atlantic, ANA, Emirates, EVA Air) and those without. Includes transfer-speed reference.
Profile →npx skills add borski/travel-hacking-toolkit --skill award-holds --agent claude-code
Same command for any agent — swap --agent for codex, cursor, copilot.
Weekly change comes from our own snapshots, not the repository page — it measures attention, not adoption.
# Award Hold Policies per Loyalty Program Reference data for which programs allow you to put an award flight ticket on hold, for how long, at what cost, and via what method (online vs phone). Critical for transferable-currency redemptions where transfers take minutes to days to clear. Data lives in [`data/award-holds.json`](../../data/award-holds.json). Refresh cadence is 90 days because hold rules change rarely. ## Why Holds Matter When you find an award seat but the points are sitting in a transferable currency (Amex MR, Chase UR, Citi TYP, Capital One, Bilt, Marriott Bonvoy), you need to transfer them to the loyalty program before booking. Transfer times range from instant (most Amex/Chase partners) to 4 days (Marriott Bonvoy to airline partners). Without a hold, you risk losing the award seat while the transfer pends. **A hold removes the seats from the available pool for the duration**, guaranteeing they'll still be there when you ticket. ## When to Use This Skill - User is planning a transferable-points booking and asks "can I hold this?" - User is comparing programs to redeem the same partner award (e.g., Cathay first/business via AA vs Cathay Asia Miles) - User asks about t
- Why Holds Matter
- When to Use This Skill
- When NOT to Use
- Programs That Allow Holds (9 + Singapore agent-discretionary)
- Programs That Do NOT Allow Holds
- Decision Rules
- Rule 1: AA AAdvantage is the universal hold tool
- Rule 2: For Star Alliance partners, Lufthansa is the longest hold
- Rule 3: For SkyTeam partners, Flying Blue holds 3 days
- Rule 4: Match transfer speed to program hold availability
- Rule 5: When the redeeming program doesn't allow holds, redirect
- Rule 6: The 5-day-hold era is over for AA
- Reading the Data File
- Cross-References
Programs that allow holds, sorted by max hold days
jq '.programs[] | select(.category == "positive") |
data/award-holds.json | head -50
Programs that do NOT allow holds
jq '.programs[] | select(.category == "negative") | {name, restrictions}' \
data/award-holds.json
Sources for a specific program
jq '.programs[] | select(.id == "american_aadvantage") | .sources' \
Transfer-speed reference
jq '.transfer_speed_reference' data/award-holds.jsonWhat does the award-holds skill do?
Per-program rules for placing award flights on hold before transferring points. Covers programs with holds (AA, Lufthansa, Flying Blue, Cathay, Turkish, Virgin Atlantic, ANA, Emirates, EVA Air) and those without. Includes transfer-speed reference.
How do I install it?
Run `npx skills add borski/travel-hacking-toolkit --skill award-holds --agent claude-code` — it drops the skill into your project so the agent can pick it up. Swap the --agent value for codex, cursor or copilot if you use one of those.
Where does this skill come from?
From borski/travel-hacking-toolkit, a repository with 611 stars. We read it straight from the repository tree rather than a submitted listing, so what you see here is what is actually published.
Is a popular skill a good skill?
Not necessarily. Stars measure attention, not adoption — a repository can trend for a week and be abandoned. That is why we show the weekly change from our own snapshots next to the total, instead of a single flattering number.