MilesBuzz! - Worst availability of award seats? My vote is AirTran

I have ten or so free one-way tickets that I've earned on AirTran. Last week I took up an hour of one of their phone reps's time searching for a flight I could take. There were exactly ZERO flights available at any hour on any Tuesday from BWI-BOS for the next three months. Tuesday isn't exactly a high-demand day, and surely not every single week is a high-demand week.

What is wrong with this picture?

You should have a talk with some Continental people.. Talk about having thousands upon thousands of useless miles.

I guess the only advantage with CO is that you could use double the miles and they have to give you a seat if its available. Not sure if airtrain lets you use double the certs for any available seat though.

since I can't just put a smiley here (message too short) I'll pad it with some words..

:)

Atleast for redemption. IMHO
no seats unless you want to spend 50k

no thanks
peace
billyb

I have ten or so free one-way tickets that I've earned on AirTran. Last week I took up an hour of one of their phone reps's time searching for a flight I could take. There were exactly ZERO flights available at any hour on any Tuesday from BWI-BOS for the next three months. Tuesday isn't exactly a high-demand day, and surely not every single week is a high-demand week.

What is wrong with this picture?

I thought AirTran had the same concept as Southwest when it comes to their frequent flier program.

It is my understanding an AirTran plane could be completely occupied with all frequent flier seats, for they do not have any restictions when it comes to an open seat on a flight and using your points for that seat.

Airtran isn't a big airline, I suspect that there's lower loyalty program participation than average as well, so I don't know how much this means (how many potential awards were earned) -- but only 43,000 awards were claimed on Airtran in 2003 (http://www.bestfares.com/travel/desks/story.asp?id=127629&desk=flyer).

I'd like to hear more about this - and AirTran. My youngest daughter will be starting college in Virginia next fall. The school requires attendance at a Preview/Orientation sometime in the summer and because she's an athlete, it's recommended she attend the earliest one possible. Bottom line is, she's registered for the June 10/11 session.

Last I checked, AA wants about $750, USAir $666 (yeah, I thought the same thing!)
AirTran is only $112 and we could fly in the big seats for only $300 and earn 1.5 miles for each mile flown.

I figured AirTran would be "her" airline for the next 4 years - as well as mine; for those prices, I was hoping I could get to a lot more games - and acquire free flights quickly. But what good are they if they can't be used!

GradGirl I assume this is how you earned your free flights from AirTran? What's your experience been like with them?

skye60, you might try checking out (and posing your question in) the Airtran forum (http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=441).

....been to the AirTran forum and it's obvious no one ever goes there, so who would answer????? :D

GradGirl
Did some serious looking at the AirTran site, which I hadn't done before, and from what I can see, your miles expire one year from their posting date.

Could that be your problem?

Last I checked, AA wants about $750, USAir $666 (yeah, I thought the same thing!)
AirTran is only $112 and we could fly in the big seats for only $300 and earn 1.5 miles for each mile flown.


Couldn't you go Shuttle to DCA and drive from there? (I know this isn't the jist of your question and I don't know where exactly in VA you are going, but $600+ to get from BOS to Virginia just sounds brutal!)

Regarding CO and it's brutal availability: isn't it a bit easier to get your miles out with DL/NW flights? I was going to vote for US as the worst carrier on earth to redeem awards on, but the minute MileagePlus and Dividend Miles completed their link-up, I was able to redeem 200,000 US miles for flights on UA metal without any trouble at all. Without that partnership, those US miles would still be sitting there.

Atleast for redemption. IMHO
no seats unless you want to spend 50k...
I know this first hand. Easy to earn but hell to redeem, even when you try redeeming on partners, e.g., DL, NW, etc. I'm just burning the miles for upgrade awards. In that way, they have some use.

I have ten or so free one-way tickets that I've earned on AirTran. Last week I took up an hour of one of their phone reps's time searching for a flight I could take. There were exactly ZERO flights available at any hour on any Tuesday from BWI-BOS for the next three months. Tuesday isn't exactly a high-demand day, and surely not every single week is a high-demand week.

What is wrong with this picture?

A lot is wrong with this picture! For one thing, the phone rep took an hour of YOUR time and you ended up with nothing after earning those free tickets. Yes, yes... the airlines have to make a profit, and constraints on award availability are the recourse. But.... in some programs... apparently AirTran... it seems to have reached a point where loyal customers are awarded only with frustration. Even the programs with a good (relatively) reputation for availability, like NW, are no picnic. It took hours for me to find availability.... but I did eventually.

RWW

I don't think AirTran is competing based on its frequent flyer program. They are more price oriented and their whole FFP seemed to be added as an afterthought anyways. Besides, the money you save on AirTran to earn those free flights probably would've bought you a new ticket already.

Thank you for your responses, everybody. AirTran's FF program is most definitely NOT Southwest-like. Southwest will give me any flight with seats available using my reward ticket. AirTran will give me near-worthless vouchers that can't even be combined to get a real plane ticket.

Yes, it's true that AirTran is competing on price, but it would be only honest for them to just discontinue the FF program if they don't intend to make some seats available. I fly this route every Tuesday, and the planes are only rarely full.

If you frequently travel an Airtran route, it's probably cheapest to fly Airtran, but I'm saying is don't count on using your FF tickets!

Atleast for redemption. IMHO
no seats unless you want to spend 50k


I wouldn't say CO is the worst, just frustrating how they handle it. They release seats, but there's no rhyme or reason to when. It's not 330 days out, 182, 90, 60, 30, or any set number. It's whenever they feel like it, so you need to keep checking.

If you call at the 330 day window, you will probably be let down. If you call 60 or 90 days out, you might be pleasantly surprised. It's all a crapshoot. Sometimes they do release at 330 days. Other times at 180. Who knows.

Combine that with their website (which only checks specific combinations). SFO-EWR-AMS may not be available because SFO-EWR is not available, but SFO-EWR-AMS on an earlier SFO-EWR with a slightly longer connection may be available, but the website won't offer it since it's not the optimal connection.

When I used an Airtran award about 6 months ago, I had no problems. The outbound was a random Saturday, but the inbound was Jan 1. The agent told me that 6% of the seats are available for awards, which seemed especially generous to me.

The program may have been changed, since under the T&C it now says that holiday periods are blacked out. Did the agent say anything about what days are best, when new availability comes on line, etc? I always like to get a bit "chatty" when calling an award program I'm not familiar with.

And this does seem like a great thread for the Airtran forum.

Even though NW is apparently better than most, it seems like they go out of their way to make it difficult to find an award ticket.

Was looking recently for DTW-TPA or FNT-TPA (traveling on Tue/Wed/Thu) and even though both are NW non-stops (5 flights/day from DTW), all of the 25,000 mile awards involved connections. Only 25K DTW awards were on DL/OH-operated flights via ATL, leaving DTW at 5:30a or 7a. The cheapest NW flight cost 37.5K and was only available with a return routing of TPA-GRR-DTW. :mad:

I don't know if it means anything, but I tried to find availability on DL today from MCO to WYS. Zero availability for all of June and July. Can't say I'm really surprised. The bright side of have MCO as my home airport is that stiff competition allows me to fly almost anywhere in the lower 48 for ~$200 if I plan ahead. The down side is that, gee, for some reason its an absolute bear to fly in and out of MCO using FF awards.

I think half the world and their kids wants to fly to MCO on their FF awards, which kinda puts the locals at a great disadvantage when it comes to redeeming theirs... You have my condolences.

Hi Murph,

I definitely tried to get a bit of information about general availability or what would be good dates to try from the phone rep but she was stonewalling me. I probably should have just hung up the phone and called back to try to get someone else on the line.

If 6 months ago they had 6% reserved, I am almost certain that they don't have 6% reserved now. The itinerary I was planning seems intensely unlikely for FF awards, since the flights are pretty cheap on that route and I was traveling on a Tuesday. I wish I could use the AirTran certificates for a more expensive ticket than the BOS-BWI routing, but I don't travel anywhere else AirTran flies direct from BWI and I am unwilling to connect in Atlanta.

cabinpressure,
This may or may not apply to you. Did you search with the WPAA lister or the NW site?.... I used the WPAA lister and went through all of June and July, finally finding availability in August to get award tix for 4 to SJU. I now realize I may have had a dangerous amount of information....lol....knowing that I could search dates faster on WPAA lister. The problem is that elite status opens up award availability (at least it does at the Plat level, not sure how this works below that)... and this wouldn't be reflected on the WPAA lister site.

I think half the world and their kids wants to fly to MCO on their FF awards, which kinda puts the locals at a great disadvantage when it comes to redeeming theirs... You have my condolences.

Half? It'd be great if it were only half! I've already learned the trick of driving 90 minutes to TPA if necessary. And the 4 hour drive to MIA or 7 hours to ATL significantly increase availability - although I haven't had to resort to that yet.

RoadWarriorWidow,
I used nwa.com since it was a limited number of departure days I was looking for (next Tue, Wed, or Thu). It just seemed like they were going out of their way to make the times and routings inconvenient (looking for a cash ticket, even a really cheap one, on nwa.com wouldn't bring up DTW-ATL-TPA or TPA-GRR-DTW). :confused:

Cabinpressure,

check your private messages for several award flights available I located on the dates you need.

RWW

I just got 2 trips scheduled on air tran the dates and times I wanted. Proper prior planning.

Good news for you then ingy

What did you do differently than GradGirl?
Seems to me she was planning ahead; but apparently not properly.....

I requested the seats the day they became available. The hardest thing dealing with air tran is watching daily for them take bookings further in the future. I booked Nov and Dec yesterday when it became available.

... AirTran's FF program is most definitely NOT Southwest-like. Southwest will give me any flight with seats available using my reward ticket. AirTran will give me near-worthless vouchers that can't even be combined to get a real plane ticket. ...

AirTran's FF program used to be just like Southwest's, but it got changed about a year ago and has never been the same since. I am assuming this was because they wound up giving away too many tickets? They could have gone to the other extreme, as JetBlue did. Obviously JetBlue is not targeting FF passengers (as indeed no airline really is, they are non-revenue, i.e. no-income pax). But they offer "TrueBlue." You have to "earn" 100 points before you get a free ticket and earning those requires so many flights, that the chances are, even for somebody like me who flies them weekly, relatively slim. THis is because they award "points" based on sectors flown, not miles. I am rapidly approaching award stage and will let you know how redemption goes. If it is like anything else connected with JetBlue, however, I suspect it will not be a problem - most everything works with them.

As far as AirTran is concerned, I have flown them many, many times and always been happy with the fair price and service rendered - so much so that I own a good chunk of their stock now and enjoy flying their business class whenever I can. However, I can see where you might be vexed by the "restructured" FF Program. ANother problem is trying to fly an LCC but seeking to avoid its only true major hub (ATL). Didn't your mama ever teach you, "You can't have everything?"