With US Bank’s FlexPerks program, flight awards usually offer the best value (see: FlexPerks award charts for flights, hotels, car rentals, and annual fees). And, it has been possible to maximize value from flight awards by selective use of multi-city searches and first class flights (see: Maximizing value from the U.S. Bank FlexPerks Travel Rewards Visa Card). Recently, though, the online FlexPerks flight search interface has changed. Now, multi-city and first class flights cannot be booked online.
New FlexPerks Flight Search interface
The new search interface has no option for multi city reservations. They now require calling (but fortunately they do waive the $25 phone fee for this):
And, the class of service selector allows economy or business class, but not first class:
Domestic first class flights are sometimes classified by the airline as business class. In these cases, those flights will appear in your search results. When they are classified as first class, though, you’ll have to call to book those flights.
These changes aren’t a huge blow since it is still possible to book first class and multi-city over the phone (make sure they don’t charge you for the privilege though!). But, it clearly makes FlexPerks flight awards much less user friendly than in the past.