Thank you for your responses. Very interesting opinions. Of course I am a "Newbie" to this site; I do not have the experience that many of you presume to have, nor am I a MILLION miles flier - YET. That said, my husband and I have redeemed PlanAhead awards to Hawaii on AA for the past 8 or 9 years. We have never had trouble before in getting the flights/times/dates we wanted. So, I guess from what you are all saying, I am lucky! I usually book about 6-7 months in advance for this award. In the future, I will book as soon as possible, as I have lots of miles!! I just thought that it would be interesting indeed, if we the consumers could KNOW how the individual airlines allocate the awards. Instead of just reputation, or word of mouth. CondeNast, Budget Travel, USA Today, just to name a few resources - all rate the airlines FF programs, but what criteria are they given to make these ratings? When they rate the "availability of award seats" - what is this based upon? I HAVE heard of horror stories about Delta and United, as well as a few others; that's why I have stayed with AA for so long. But, I guess until there is a passenger bill of rights, as stated, we, the passenger/consumer have minimal rights to this info. To "Plato90's" - I DID mention the wrong planes - I see that they are flying mostly 767's and MD-80's now to Hawaii. In the past, they flew DC-10's (at least that is what I was told they were called - 9 or 10 seats across - 2 on each side, and I believe 6 in the middle) from DFW at least. I know, because I was on one several times, as recently as 2002. Also, when I looked up the PlanAhead awards today, more WERE available (although none from DFW, PHL, or LAX on 3/4, on 3/5 only routing thru ORD, and no returns until the 14th or later which would not work for me). When I looked about 5 days ago, there were NO PlanAhead awards from 5 major cities I checked, including Americans 2 main hubs, DFW & ORD. Just goes to show you how quickly the availability DOES fluctuate. So, in a nutshell, the airlines may continually alter the award seating whenever/however they please? And we have no right to this info?

Thanks again.