Originally Posted by
channa
No, the study looked at availability on any flight on that particular day, as reflected on the website.
How is it a good way to measure a program if they're only including a fraction of the availability? The websites often don't include partners, and those that do, do so in varying degrees. The survey's methodology is inherently flawed if they are trying to infer mileage usability, which is exactly what they're trying to infer.
It's a reward seat availability report, which at the core, should measure how airlines make their own seats available for FFP awards. While alliances and alternative redemption options are great, they only represent a fraction of all miles redeemed (even though technically alliances open up thousands more possibilities). So they study is valid in that it provides an apples to apples comparison of programs and the availability of the awards redeemed most often. I was concerned (or perhaps hopeful) regarding your implication that agents have access to systems that provide better availability than the website. I've flown for years on NW to Asia and now with Delta I've looked at some US to Asia markets that have no first award level availability for an entire year. This report, therefore, rings true for my situation with DL availability at 12.9%. As such, I'm looking to focus my future efforts on CO even though they don't have the most direct routes.