This study equates "highest award seat availability" with being the "highest ranked program." Now while this may be true for some people, it is simply not the only factor for most frequent flyers. In fact, other important factors may be % of upgrade successes, quality of inflight service, quality of customer service, among other things. I, for one, will avoid flying Southwest Airlines at all costs. Let alone join their FF program and try to rack up Rapid Rewards. The fact that they ended up #1 on this list will not change that.