Airlines charge more miles for awards that would be displacing paying passengers.

They charge fewer miles for awards that claim seats they believe would otherwise go empty.

Those are broad generalizations, and probably not true in 100% of cases, but nevertheless seem like at least a useful freamwork for understanding why there are capacity controls on saver awards.

Sure, miles may get used eventually. But airlines want them to be used for seats they wouldn't otherwise sell. They also don't want a person to choose to redeem miles for a flight they'd otherwise pay top dollar for. Makes sense to me.

That having been said, as long as I've had a little bit of flexibility in flight times (and for F awards to SYD, 1-2 days flexibility in travel days) I've always gotten what I wanted. Guess I'm lucky.

Everyone should give their business to the airline that provides them what they want -- whether putting a premium on non-stop flights, cheap fares, upgrades, or availability for award redemptions.

Southwest has a great program for folks that value its benefits. For my award redemption, I don't really want domestic coach tickets... most of the time.

(I've actually redeemed saver Y awards twice in my life: once before I even knew about F awards! When the only thing I knew was 25k miles = a free ticket. And then to go to the Freddies in COS this year because UA operates RJs ORD-COS.. no reason for an F award. But I got upgraded DCA-ORD anyway!)

I want to spend my miles for things I wouldn't otherwise be able to pay for. I want to fly in F to SYD, PPT, CNS, etc. Rapid Rewards (or TrueBlue, or A-Plus Rewards, or whatever) simply won't do that for me.

Let a thousand flowers bloom and that sort of thing!

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View from the Wing: A blog about Free Miles and Free Markets