Originally Posted by
UA Fan
It would a guideline. In general i have noticed that when an airline releases a seat to its members, it will release to others as well. There are several exceptions (SQ?) where the airline wants to give its members more opportunities to redeem and so may allow awards to its members and not others.
At a minimum if an airline does not release seats to its members then it won't release seats to its partners. One strange exception is CX where I saw its members not being able to get a particular flight, but I was able to get it with AA miles.
Yes, it's a guideline. Even if every award seat that was available to IT ferquent flyers was available to DL, the seats could be gone, by the time it takes one to call Delta.
IT is twice removed from DL. Often the inventory is the best for an airline's own FF's, followed by the alliance and then other partners.
When CO was a NW partner, sometimes you could see seats on CO's website, but NW agents (Platinum line) could not see those seats in the inventory available to them, although you could go back and look at CO's site, the seats would still be available. If you have status with the airline, sometimes they would try a little harder, with mixed results.