What to do when miles only get you halfway there

I book most if not all of my award flights as one-way flights. Why? Many times, I fly a different airline one way and another one going back based on award availability. Or, I don’t have enough miles in one program for both ways, so I have to utilize two programs.

But what happens if you find a great deal on getting TO your destination but can’t find a suitable return flight? I’m currently going through this right now with my Spring Break 2026 plans.

A few months ago, I found flights from DFW to St. Maarten for only 10k AA miles. What a steal! However, I’ve not had luck finding return flights that are reasonable. The least expensive flights I can find for our date range cost 42,000 miles or $500, and those flights have two stopovers. Ugh! So, what are our options?

Wait it out

Our spring break isn’t until March, so we still have many months in which better deals can come along. Plus, Spirit Airlines’ flight calendar doesn’t reach out dates yet, so a lower cost flight could appear later. Waiting it out is the best option for now. I check award availability and cash prices almost every day. Persistence usually pays off!

Think outside the box

Finding award flights back home might not look like typical award flights. I’m exploring different dates, different cities within the U.S. and using a combination of award flights and cash flights. These options might not be as convenient, but the extra stops and flight times could be worth saving $2500 for my family of 5.

For example, I could book a cash flight from St. Maarten to Miami and then a separate award flight from Miami to DFW. Or, I could book two totally unrelated award flights. The cheapest flights I’ve found for return flights to the USA are from SXM to JFK for 14,000 points:

We could spend the night in the NYC area and fly out of Newark the next day for just 7500 Alaska miles:

Total cost: 21,500 miles per person. Not too bad. But, the itinerary is kind of a pain, right? We’d have to get from JFK to Newark. Plus, it’s NEWARK! The airport doesn’t exactly have the best reputation right now.

Pay cash for one way or both ways

Of course, we could always just pay cash for return flights. Or, if it’s cheaper, cancel our flights to St. Maarten and pay cash for round-trip flights.

Cancel/Rethink Trip

My husband and son were supposed to go to San Francisco this fall for the Laver Cup tennis tournament. I used IHG free night certificates for their lodging. However, when tickets for the Laver Cup went on sale, they determined that the price of the tickets was just too steep and the trip didn’t make sense anymore, even if the flights and hotel were free. So, they canceled the trip.

The last resort is that we could cancel this spring break trip if we can’t find award flights or reasonably-priced return flights. I don’t like this option, but it’s not off the table. I purposely booked an AirBnB that we could cancel with no penalty up to a certain point. And, we can easily cancel our AA award flights and get the miles refunded. Our world will not end if we can’t go to St. Maarten over spring break.

Overall Thoughts

I’m not giving up on this trip to St. Maarten yet. We might need to get creative with our flights and even consider changing or canceling the trip. But, let’s see what happens in the next few months.

Have you ever had trouble booking the other half of your flights? What did you end up doing?