<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by MikeLaw:
It is always difficult to evaluate anecdotal reports on statistical measures. I have always found USAir easier to redeem awards than any other airline I have tried to claim awards on. I cashed in all my miles on several different airlines one summer to take my extended family on a vacation together and found more availability on US than DL, NW or CO.
I have no idea how accurate it is, but WebFlyer keeps award success statistics and they claim that US is the best at allowing redemptions at 72%. UA is next best at 59%. NW is the worst at 37%. You can see the results for yourself at WebFlyer </font>
Since Southwest will give you any available seat, and they are in the middle of the list, it would appear that the data for this study includes a proportionally high requests for last minute seats. That said, perhaps US Air releases a lot of seats at the last minute.
Also, if you go to the bottom of the page and use the pull down menu to look at the months of June and July 2003, you see a large number of 100%'s. This would indicate a very small sample size, which would invalidate the usefulness of the study.
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Free Frequent Flyer Miles
[This message has been edited by pgary (edited Dec 02, 2003).]