Short answer: Yes — AwardFares is a legitimate, widely used award-search and alert tool and is generally safe to use. It’s a reliable way to find and monitor award-seat availability faster than checking multiple airline sites yourself, but it isn’t perfect and you should always confirm availability and pricing with the airline or loyalty program before booking. (awardfares.com)

What the service does well

• Aggregates award availability across many frequent‑flyer programs so you can scan routes/dates quickly (and set alerts). (awardfares.com)
• Offers real‑time refresh options on paid tiers (hourly on Gold, as fast as every minute on Diamond) to catch newly released seats. (awardfares.com)
• Has a free tier / 24‑hour trial and an anonymous search mode so you can test it without creating an account. (blog.awardfares.com)

Key limitations / reliability caveats

• AwardFares shows availability it retrieves from the supported frequent‑flyer programs, but for some broad searches it uses cached results; cached results can sometimes show “phantom” availability that disappears when you try to book. You should always recheck/refresh and verify on the airline’s site or with your loyalty program before spending miles. (help.awardfares.com)
• Availability can differ between frequent‑flyer programs (an award seat visible to one program may not be bookable on another), so the tool is best used to discover possibilities — not as the final booking authority. (help.awardfares.com)

Safety & privacy

• AwardFares appears to be a legitimate company with generally positive user reviews (Trustpilot) and technical indicators of a legitimate site. Scam‑checking sites flag no major red flags and show a valid SSL certificate. That said, no automated check is perfect — use normal precautions (strong passwords, unique email for services you want separated, check your bank statements). (trustpilot.com)
• You don’t book directly through AwardFares; it’s a search engine that redirects you to the airline or loyalty‑program booking flow (or gives you the flight details to enter when calling the airline). That reduces the need to hand over airline passwords to a third party. Still avoid giving any service your airline login credentials unless you trust a specific function that requires it. (help.awardfares.com)

Practical tips to use it safely and effectively

• Use the free trial or anonymous search to test results for your routes before subscribing. (blog.awardfares.com)
• For highest accuracy, run a live refresh (or upgrade to Diamond/Gold) and then immediately confirm availability on the airline’s site or by phone. (awardfares.com)
• Use the alert feature (email/push) to catch openings quickly, and set filters (cabin, airline, dates) so you aren’t overwhelmed by noisy alerts. (awardfares.com)
• Don’t assume every result is bookable for your miles — confirm the exact award price and routing rules on the loyalty program that will issue the ticket before transferring points or finalizing a redemption. (help.awardfares.com)

Bottom line AwardFares is a safe, legitimate, and useful tool for tracking award flights and getting alerts — especially if you want to scan many programs and dates quickly. It’s reliable as a discovery and monitoring tool, but not a substitute for final verification on the airline/frequent‑flyer site because of caching, program differences, and occasional phantom availability. (awardfares.com)

If you want, I can summarize how AwardFares compares to a specific alternative (PointsYeah, point.me, ExpertFlyer, etc.) or show a short checklist you can follow when a good result pops up.